SANTA ANA — Thinking Liberally Media, Inc., dba TheLiberalOC, along with Madison Alexander Public Relations, Inc. and several other parties filed a federal lawsuit today against Art Pedroza and the Orange Juice Blog. The suit alleges several violations of federal law including cybersquatting and copyright infringement.
We are posting a copy of the complaint in order to dispel any misinformation that may be presented by Mr. Pedroza on his blog or elsewhere. We feel it is important that our readers may have access to our actual complaint and thus access to our side of the story. We tried to settle the matter out of court, but were unsuccessful. We will not be arguing our case on this or any other blog; we will reserve that for court. To that end we intend to limit our coverage of this matter as much as possible; focusing instead on political issues of greater interest to the majority of our readers.
Click Here for the complaint. We’ll post the updated version of the complaint with the timestamp from federal court later today.
Chris Prevatt, Publisher.
Pedroza is an idiot. And as usual, he refuses to accept any responsibility for his own behavior. He whines “You started it” and blames others for his behavior, like some 5 year old.
Ok, this is about as childish as it gets. I mean really. For all that you guys accuse me of being, I simply can’t come close to this school yard crap. Good luck, hope you have fun wasting money on this one.
Cameron
Cameron — what do we accuse you of being?
And for Paul Lucas, please note Janet Nguyen is not a co-defendent in this case. She is also not a co-plantiff in this case either. This lawsuit has nothing to do with Janet Nguyen. But I do eagerly await your next threatening email to me.
Thank you,
It is wonderful to see that Pedroza and his buddy Sean Mill are finally going to get a bit of what’s coming to them. For far to long they been able to libel, lie, and bully on that poisonous blog. I wish there was some way to shut down OJ as a settlement
Good for you.
oy vay! prevatt, please quit embarrassing yourself. this is extremely lame and disturbing at the same time. i think we can all agree that pedroza is a tool but this lawsuit is just stupid. it really shows how thin skinned you guys are and how none of you should be running any blog especially this one. and i like the way you start off the post like “santa ana”- our parent company, corp, blah blah blah like you guys are really important. give me a break. once again i see you guys have gotten your pantaloons in a twist. pity.
Jose s.
Thanks for stopping by. I always appreciate your input. That said, let me break it down for you. Pedroza acquired web domain addresses that were either very similar or exactly like the names of established businesses. He did so with the expressed intent of harming the reputations and value of those businesses. That is against the law. Both Dan and I told Pedroza when he did this that we would do whatever was necessary to protect our businesses. He thought we were bluffing. We weren’t.
Pedroza bought domain names related to various individuals who had nothing to do with the domain name artpedroza.com. Some of those harmed by his actions joined this suit.
Simply put, this isn’t about a feud or political differences of opinion. It is about protecting individual and business reputations for harm caused by Pedroza breaking the law.
Art crossed the line between free speech and violation of federal law.
prevatt, you said it yourself: he bought “similar” domain names and what “harm” can you prove? you cant. this is all about you hating each other and it’s nice to know that B.S. lawsuits like this are clogging up our courts because two little children cant play nice with each other. both of you are liars but this whole thing really makes you look bad. worst than anything it makes this blog look bad.
Are you a lawyer Jose? Read the complaint again and look up relevant case law. We didn’t route Art’s name to a porn site or NAMBLA like he did with ours. We didn’t demand he give us names for free and expect him to pay $1000 to $2000 for a domain we own — or else. “They started it” is not a defense in a court of law. And Art crossed the line going after my business which is named for my children. Do you have kids? Would you like them associated with the organization Art linked them too? You’re not privy to all the emails he sent. We have spent weeks gathering evidence. Our suit is rooted in case law.
I am not a legal expert, but it would seem that the LOC did a little cybersquatting all over Art Pedroza – and that’s not a bad thing.
Just asking, wasn’t it cyber squating when Beth Krom did this to John Campbell?
http://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/politics/-What-a-Difference-an-S-Makes-82787812.html
No it’s not. The domain name was never offered for sale and was not acquired with the intent to profit. Political opponents of Tom Daly and Pam Kellar own their domain names and Deborah Gavello had her preferred domain name snatched up after she declared for Tustin City council. This is very different than our lawsuit.
cheminowski,enough with the false outrage. isnt that what you guys told me once? no i’m not a lawyer but that doesnt mean i dont know my way around a courtroom. and one thing i know for a fact is that you can file a lawsuit against anybody for anything you want whenever you want. you can try to twist this any way you want to but in the end you guys are looking really silly right now. your lawsuit will go nowhere.
i should file a lawsuit against you guys for destroying this once great blog.
Pedroza has always been a petulant dilettante politician, unable to secure enough votes to be a neighborhood watch captain. Sad to see Gusano Arradondo worshipping his footsteps. Then again, Gus is a failed academic, mentored by a real academic, Will Swaim, graduate of a real university. Swaim must be turning circles in his tanning booth as we speak.
Art Pedroza promoted NAMBLA and sex with young children on his website. Art Pedroza also promoted Sal Tinajero for mayor of Santa Ana. Does Sal Tinajero, who teaches children, desire to be associated with Art Pedroza and his pedastry promoting ways?
Sheesh –
I am so sick of hearing sycophants like \Jose S.\ go on and on about how they understand the law, know their way around a courtroom, and know whether a case has merit or is \frivolous\ or \B.S.\.
What Pedroza did was wrong – what surprises me is that their is not a cause of action for intentional infliction of emotional distress for the NAMBLA redirect, for intentional interference with prospective economic advantage, and a number of other very viable and very justified causes of action.
Jose S. – you really know nothing about the law other than you do not like it.
Todd tells me it’s easy to amend the complaint as warranted, but even Art’s “peace” offering still mandated we pay him about 150 percent markup for the URLs he bought and he asked for domains that I don’t own. So it was pretty impossible to honor his request. All I can say is our case is in the complaint. It’s well documented and backed up with evidence we’ve been collecting since mid-November.
And for all his bluster on his OJ posts, Art is still making up stuff and not telling his readers the whole story. I think it’s pretty funny that he thinks my political allies include Janet Nguyen, Andrew Do and Tom Daly. And the act of just buying his name was an attack on him but his purhcase amounted to “political free speech?” My business has nothing to do with politics. I don’t think “Lee’s Sandwiches in Stanton” is a political site either, not that I have ever eaten there.
sheesh- i’m so sick of people coming in here and talking smack under fake made up names. so “martiniman”, are you saying pedroza is a pedophile? and what emotional distress did he cause? and you are right i dont like the law. i dont like how some people use it to seek revenge on others and to waste time and money on something that amounts to nothing. and i do know enough about the law to defend myself like i did the last time the city attorney’s office in santa ana took me to trial over something frivolous and B.S. ya, i won that case and looked good doing it in my suit and tie. all i did was open a big fat can of woop ass.it was beautiful you should have been there.
Sean Mill, always pretending to not be homophobic, put up a rediculous post playing word games regarding the lawsuit and homosexuality. Sean and Art came make a basket of puppies on Valentines day repulsive. Everything they say and do becomes tainted and disgusting. Best of luck with your lawsuit.
“Jose S.”
I am not saying Art Pedroza is a pedophile, and nothing I wrote could even be construed by a rational mind as saying anything like that. When you take a person’s name, make it a URL and direct that URL to a pedophile celebration website (NAMBLA)- which is what PEDROZA did, and what my post calls him out on – that is an intentional act intended to link that person’s name with pedophilia. It is not funny. It is not sophomoric. It is sick, and it is twisted and it is as hurtful as accusing someone to be a pedophile online. It is also illegal, and I would predict that Art Pedroza is going to face a jury that is going to find it pretty shocking behavior, and I believe he is going to get his tagged pretty hard for it.
By the way, I called Art a Sycophant – I understand it is multiple syllables, so let me provide a definition for you since you apparently thought it meant pedophile :
sycâ‹…oâ‹…phant
  /ˈsɪkəfənt, -ˌfænt, ˈsaɪkə-/ Show Spelled Pronunciation [sik-uh-fuhnt, -fant, sahy-kuh-] Show IPA
–noun
a self-seeking, servile flatterer; fawning parasite.
Dictionaries are great things – you should acquaint yourself with one.
I find it sad that Art has deteriorated to where he is today. I found him to be a pretty good guy for a long time, open minded, thoughtful. He certainly has a good intellect. But something happened to him a couple-three years ago that made him go off the deep end. He has become a mean, vindictive, nasty person who has engaged in petty and horrific acts of prolonged harassment of people, including a lot of people he always spoke pretty well of until a few years back. the same goes for the OJ Blog. the who;e thing has frankly turned me off to these local blogs, although i still look in on all of them from time to time. unfortunately, they have been dumbed down and have alienated the more thoughtful and reflective commentators, and are now mainly name calling sites.
As for your alleged in pro per defense against some harassing action by the city of Santa Ana: (1) give us the case number so we can verify it – the case will be online at the Orange County Superior Court website. (2) I wouldn’t be shocked that the City of Santa Ana did something petty in filing a lawsuit anyway, although that is more a commentary about the City’s governance than the law itself. (3) You write “The last time the city attorney’s office in santa ana took me to trial over something frivolous . . .” this begs the question: How many times have they done so and how many times have you lost?
The answer and remedy to a frivolous lawsuit is sanctions, which the law provides for in multiple ways. Your argument is disingenuous as it turns your complaints about a person who abuses the laws and the courts into an argument against the courts and against the laws. And in every case, there is a winner and a loser: that does not mean that the case is frivolous, nor does it mean that people should be barred from the courts or seeking redress under the law. People who file frivolous lawsuits can be barred from filing lawsuits as “vexatious litigants” – thus there is already a remedy (actually, many, many, many, remedies) available against people who file frivolous lawsuits.