UPDATED 6:33 P.M. EST (U.S.A.) Dallas attorney Larry Friedman represents the ASD Members Business Association (ASDMBA) Trust. Friedman has sued Florida resident Jack Arons for slander and libel, asserting that Arons — a self-styled truth-seeker whom Friedman describes as a “felon” and a “vigilante” and an Internet “menace” — has told untruths and slimed him online.
The filing of a lawsuit against Arons strikes us as a severe remedy and a warning to others not to ask too many uncomfortable questions. It’s hard not to see things that way when a person purporting to be Bob Guenther, the de facto head of the Trust, appears to be acting as Friedman’s publicist and bouncer — and using Friedman’s law shingle as a weapon.
Friedman assesses the harm from Arons’ alleged slime at $50,000. He filed a 12-page lawsuit, but swore only to a single paragraph in the document in a verification on the final page. Regardless, Friedman walked away with a temporary restraining order designed to mute Arons.
Critics at the ASD-Biz forum say the document reads like a broad bid to chill legitimate discussion about ASDMBA. Prior to the filing of the lawsuit, some ASDMBA members said they filed complaints against Friedman with the Texas Bar and the office of Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott. The members want to know how ASDMBA is spending money it collected.
And they want to know why no ASDMBA litigation has been filed to date, whether ASDMBA even can gain standing in a forfeiture case against the alleged proceeds of a criminal enterprise, and why the Trust says it still owes Friedman money. The kinds of questions ASDMBA members say they want answered certainly are reasonable.
Friedman’s client is the ASDMBA Trust, not the individual members who provided funding and comprise the association. The original plan was for Friedman to communicate with members through the Trust, which effectively is under the control of Bob Guenther, who identified himself a Friedman client in matters that did not pertain to ASDMBA. Guenther introduced Friedman to the members in a conference call when the Trust was being formed last summer.
The trouble with Friedman’s claim that the Trust is the proper information gateway, according to members, is that Guenther doesn’t answer questions and has released only a broad accounting of how ASDMBA spends its money. These members say the accounting is far too vague. They also complain about verbal bullying from Guenther, who has cited a longtime friendship with Friedman.
It’s all well and good that Friedman’s client is the Trust. Friedman, in effect, is saying members should turn to Guenther for answers, and that very well could be proper if Friedman has an attorney-client relationship with the Trust. But when members can’t get the answers they seek from the Trust or become the subject of a passive-aggressive rant or verbal threat from Guenther, where do they turn?
Some of them say they turned to the Texas Bar and Abbott. The lawsuit against Arons followed — and was announced by a person who purported to be Guenther in two separate threads at the ASD-Biz forum.
One of the posts announced the announcement, pointing viewers to a separate thread that contained the actual announcement. The poster purporting to be Guenther was the first person to post links to the lawsuit documents, before any information appeared on the Dallas court site and before Arons was served.
How the lawsuit information was disseminated creates the appearance that Guenther is working as Friedman’s flack and bouncer. Even at the very moment this post is being written, a person purporting to be Guenther is over at the ASD-Biz forum threatening to extend Friedman’s long arm from Dallas and sue other people. The claim is that no one can say they haven’t been warned about Friedman’s ability to file libel lawsuits.
The implication is that Guenther himself wants to spread the chill. In a juvenile insult, Arons was referred to as “Rookie.” The message was rookies get sued and eaten for lunch by the professionals, so don’t ask too many questions.
Still, however, there has been no transparent accounting from the complaining members’ point of view. A lack of transparent accounting certainly isn’t consistent with professionalism — and was one of the reasons ASDMBA members said they turned to the Texas Bar and Abbott to address their concerns.
Members want to know why ASDMBA, for example, appears to have spent thousands of dollars on what was vaguely described as contract services and Internet expenses. It is possible to purchase web hosting for a site that would accommodate ASDMBA’s needs for $24 a year, not thousands of dollars.
People know that. They also know that vague accounting sometimes is a signature of abuse. Their concerns are not silly. They could be addressed in minutes by Bob Guenther and the Trust.
And yet the concerns aren’t being addressed, according to members. Meanwhile, Jack Arons is being called a “Rookie” and getting sued, and a poster purporting to be Guenther is announcing the lawsuit with great fanfare and opining that 80% of men are “internet pussies who couldn’t work their way out of a wet paper bag.”
Yes, really.
“Jack Arons Sued, Served and Shut Up, Finally…” reads the over-the-top headline, in the thread that announces Friedman’s legal handiwork.
There were reports this morning that Arons’ Internet connection was taken down as a result of documents faxed to his ISP.
Friedman’s quickest route to restore a reputation he claims was damaged is not to sue Jack Arons; it is to insist that Guenther and the Trust be straightforward in their dealings with members who contributed money and, if they’re not, to fire the Trust as a client.
As things stand now, the person purporting to be Guenther appears to be staining Friedman’s reputation by acting as a bouncer against people who might be inclined to file complaints with the Texas Bar and Abbott. What’s more, the temporary restraining order is so broad that it appears to restrain people sympathetic to Arons even from contacting Friedman to let him know what’s going on at the forum.
Appearances matter. It looks like the person purporting to be Guenther is doing Friedman’s bidding for him and seeking to insulate himself from criticism and legitimate questioning by dangling Friedman’s shingle as a weapon. At a minimum, this situation creates the appearance of impropriety. It looks like thuggery.
The poster purporting to be Guenther shows virtually no restraint. The ASD case has never been about politics, but Guenther — who seems not to possess a thimble full of PR savvy — routinely cites his conservative credentials in forum threads about ASD or ASDMBA. It’s as though he can’t even conceive that ASD and ASDMBA have Democrats and liberals in their membership ranks and that politics has no place in this particular business discussion.
ASDMBA members weren’t asked about their political leanings when they joined. They were told that the association was going to litigate in their interests. They didn’t join to be told they weren’t conservative enough or Republican enough to be taken seriously. And they certainly didn’t join to be made the subjects of juvenile ridicule by Guenther and threats that they, too, will get sued if they don’t play the game by rules he defines.
On the ASDMBA website, Guenther is directing bluster at William Cowden, the federal prosecutor handling the ASD case. Guenther had made a big show of emailing questions to Cowden, who is under no obligation at all to provide Guenther any answers. The ASD case is an active, ongoing investigation. Cowden wouldn’t discuss the government’s prosecutorial plans during an active investigation even if Congress were to subpoena him. He’s certainly not going to jump through Guenther’s hoops.
Larry Friedman should drop the lawsuit against Jack Arons. At the same time, he should stop Guenther from using his attorney’s shingle as a weapon. Little wonder that attorneys are made the subject of jokes and outright ridicule when this kind of thing is happening in full public view.
ASDMBA should provide a full, itemized, transparent accounting. Bob Guenther should end any involvement with ASDMBA and rid himself of the notion that people are too stupid or too afraid to hold him accountable.