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@micahodor This... is a big lift.
@micahodor I will attempt to sum it up.
Vic Mignognia is a 50 something year old American voice actor, famed w/in a niche audience for voicing characters in anime localization dubs. He is also, by growing reputation, a sex pest who went to cons to pick up young women and harassed coworkers
Vic Mignognia is a 50 something year old American voice actor, famed w/in a niche audience for voicing characters in anime localization dubs. He is also, by growing reputation, a sex pest who went to cons to pick up young women and harassed coworkers
@micahodor These rumors have been swirling around the industry and adjacent fan community for at least a decade, but came to head around January 2019, following the release of Dragon Ball: Broly, where Vic played the title character, due to a combination of MeToo and Twitter being Twitter.
@micahodor Vic was dropped by Funimation, a/the major player in the area for dubs, as well as RoosterTeeth and a number of anime conventions for the same reason. The timeline gets a little muddled here, but Vic becomes cause célèbre for comicsgate folks who are looking to relitigate metoo.
@micahodor A YouTuber, probable trustfund baby, and notional lawyer by the name of Nick Rekieta whips donations from Vic's remaining fans + the new comicsgaters folks, aka ISWV, to help "Vic Kick Back" against the people, many of them Twitter randoms, who were trying to hashtag KickVic.
@micahodor In a short time frame, Nick raised 6 figures on GoFundMe, got Vic to sign off on the GFM campaign, referred Vic to one of Nick's old family friends, A trust attorney named Ty Beard, and started focusing his show on the case as desired by his audience.
@micahodor Ty Beard moves to sue, in Texas, Funimation, former contract counter party, and two of Vic's former contract coworkers, Jamie Marchi and Monica Rial, for defaming Vic and some other dependent causes of action.
As part of this process he has to issue TDMA letters.
As part of this process he has to issue TDMA letters.
@micahodor TDMA letters need to specify the offending statement and explain why it was defamatory. Beard's letters included some very bad work, the two worst examples are attached below. This quickly travels around lawtwitter. I think patient zero was @AkivaMCohen 
@micahodor @AkivaMCohen It is a very bad idea to pursue a losing case for defamation in Texas, because it has a strong anti-SLAPP law. SLAPPs are law suits used bye rich and powerful people to shut up less powerful actors with expensive but meritless litigation. This is something I care about.
@micahodor @AkivaMCohen Lots of us care a lot about that free speech issue. @greg_doucette in particular. Greg himself is a prolific tweeter who has an unusual style of tweeting, which is that he uses long unbroken quote tweets in order to stop the conversation from spreading too much.
@micahodor @AkivaMCohen @greg_doucette He is also, to put it gently, kinda fighty on the internet. So it was on Jun 6, 2019, the #threadnought began with Greg asking this question
@micahodor @AkivaMCohen @greg_doucette That tweet and the following thread of thread, plus his explanations concerning defamation law and the incompetence of Ty beard has over 5000 tweets long and has been ongoing, with Greg at the center fighting with the enraged ISWV group aforementioned
@micahodor @AkivaMCohen @greg_doucette A number of free speech fans, lawyers, and many lawyer-adjacents have been trying help out. Some of it is fighting the trolls. Some of it about educating the public. A lot of it is that Rekieta and Beard are an embarrassment upon the self-regulated legal profession.
@micahodor @AkivaMCohen @greg_doucette Not a small part of that is recruiting the doxxers and other internet ne'er-do-wells at Kiwifarms to harass people and engage in bad faith shenanigans. This includes strategically reporting opposing accounts for gender harassment by temporarily claiming opposite gender pronouns.
@micahodor @AkivaMCohen @greg_doucette The string of retweets is in part because Greg was a victim of such a play (and the stupidity of the Twitter mechanisms) and I'm helping in a small way to push back.
@micahodor @AkivaMCohen @greg_doucette The case is mercifully headed towards its final stages, at least at the trial level. Beard turns out, at every turn, to be less competent than we thought. The trolls are growing more vicious as the noose begins to tighten at last
@micahodor @AkivaMCohen @greg_doucette At a basic, elemental level, its about people trying to tell the truth against people deeply invested in shutting them up, and abusing our systems to do it. And that's worth caring about.
~fin~
~fin~
@micahodor @AkivaMCohen @greg_doucette Coda:
Greg's been suspended, which sucks, as Greg deserves his victory lap now that Beard's has filed, late, another terrible piece of work that will somehow screw his client even more.
But others are picking up the torch, thus the mad retweeting.
Greg's been suspended, which sucks, as Greg deserves his victory lap now that Beard's has filed, late, another terrible piece of work that will somehow screw his client even more.
But others are picking up the torch, thus the mad retweeting.
@micahodor @AkivaMCohen @greg_doucette Even Mike the Sound Guy (no relation) has thoughts!
Maybe he's been reading law with Greg or something.
Maybe he's been reading law with Greg or something.
@micahodor @AkivaMCohen @greg_doucette Sempai is not going to appreciate you equating me to him. He's very insistent I'm below his class.
@micahodor @AkivaMCohen @greg_doucette Yep! I meant to point out how they dragged in Toye for no good reason, but I forgot, because I was doing this thread live.
The lesson on what happens when you don't take the time carefully draft and edit your work is left as an exercise to the reader.
The lesson on what happens when you don't take the time carefully draft and edit your work is left as an exercise to the reader.
@micahodor @AkivaMCohen @greg_doucette If @micahodor wants to watch Nick get drunk, whine about SJW cucks, and misinform him on the law, he's welcome to it, but I do warn all involved that video is the only format it's available in.
@micahodor @AkivaMCohen @greg_doucette You're very welcome! My only concern is that the normies underestimate the crazy and join us.
@micahodor @AkivaMCohen @greg_doucette Doing a little pruning to try to keep this thread easy to navigate.
@micahodor @AkivaMCohen @greg_doucette I think the median result at this point is all claims are dismissed, and some sanctions discovery.
If any survive, Beard should try to leverage that to minimize the damage to his client and settle out with the check flowing in the survivor's direction.
If any survive, Beard should try to leverage that to minimize the damage to his client and settle out with the check flowing in the survivor's direction.
@micahodor @AkivaMCohen @greg_doucette Of course, that would require his ethical duty of competence to beat his ego and greed and we know how that has worked out before.
@micahodor @AkivaMCohen @greg_doucette Tell you what. Quote tweet the stuff you don't like onto your TL with your own take and I'll see if it's worth hashing out.
@micahodor @AkivaMCohen @greg_doucette I attempted to address the concerns, such as they were, here. Click through and scroll up if you feel additional detail as to what Vic has admitted to doing or denies doing is necessary.
@micahodor @AkivaMCohen @greg_doucette If a claim survives TCPA it means the judge thinks there is some clear and specific evidence in support of that claim, not that the claim is a winner.
@micahodor @AkivaMCohen @greg_doucette Look, I avoided giving the they're-all-whores defense any airing for a lot of reasons, but I have to say:
Just screen shot it! For goodness sakes, don't take a *picture* of your computer, what do you think computers are for?
Just screen shot it! For goodness sakes, don't take a *picture* of your computer, what do you think computers are for?
@micahodor @AkivaMCohen @greg_doucette You could also open the documents your self as generously provided by @shane_holmberg right here instead of taking a picture of a video of a document!
