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Florida Bar files complaint against Frack Thompson! |
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Shino
Fade into this fantasy, caught in the web of time
Age: 49
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Joined: 15 Sep 2002 |
 Posted: Tue Feb 06, 2007 9:58 am Post subject: Florida Bar files complaint against Frack Thompson! |
Maybe the douchebag will finally get what's coming to him.
| Gamespot wrote: | Florida Bar faces Thompson in court again
Organization files complaint against vocal lawyer for violating rules of professional conduct, repeatedly disobeying a judge's order.
By Brendan Sinclair, GameSpot
Posted Feb 5, 2007 4:21 pm ET
Florida attorney and game-regulation activist Jack Thompson has been involved in a number of public feuds stemming from his efforts against the likes of shock-jock Howard Stern, Grand Theft Auto publisher Take-Two Interactive, and the lawyers who have represented them. Thompson has even sued the Florida Bar, of which he is a member.
Now the Florida Bar has rolled up all those feuds and more into a 40-page complaint filed with the state's Supreme Court. Self-explanatory game blog GamePolitics broke the story over the weekend, reporting that the Bar's complaint makes five allegations against Thompson for violations of professional conduct.
GameSpot obtained a full copy of the complaint, which accuses Thompson of a number of misdeeds, such as repeatedly disobeying a judge's orders and violating Alabama's rules of professional conduct. Specifically, the complaint says Thompson made out-of-court statements that could tamper with the court case, knowing that they would be picked up and widely reported.
The complaint also alleges that Thompson directly violated a judge's orders multiple times. In November 2005, Fayette County Circuit Judge James Moore revoked Thompson's temporary license to practice law in Alabama for his behavior in the civil suit of a man convicted of killing two police officers and a dispatcher. Moore also ordered Thompson not to send him copies of any letters or e-mails he sent to a third party. The complaint says Thompson violated that order at least 30 times.
Another count accuses Thompson of making statements about Take-Two's lawyers opposing him "for no substantial purpose other than to embarrass, disparage, or humiliate them," of threatening disciplinary charges just to get a leg up in his civil suit, and for making statements about the qualifications or integrity of a judge with a reckless disregard for the truth. The final two counts allege that Thompson disparaged the lawyers representing Howard Stern in his legal battles with the radio host, accusing them of extortion and racketeering, among other things.
Thompson has filed a motion to stay any disciplinary action in the case and a motion for mediation. The Bar has not filed a response, and the judge has not ruled on either motion yet. |
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oxxyjoe
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| Posted: Tue Feb 06, 2007 1:50 pm Post subject: |
I hadn't read about this guy myself, but it sounds like you're right. Woot, 1-up for anti-censorship. |
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Silver Adept
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| Posted: Tue Feb 06, 2007 2:45 pm Post subject: |
Interesting. Thompson finally cheesed enough people off that they're going to try and revoke him in Florida. If they do, I wonder whether he'll just try to set up shop elsewhere. |
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Razer
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| Posted: Tue Feb 06, 2007 4:32 pm Post subject: |
He'll set up somewhere else. There's always some out of touch place that will welcome his heavy-handed scare tactics. This is why parents should be parents. If everyone claimed their own responsibilites and took care of them we would have no need (and I do not include myself in that "we") for a-holes like Thompson. Undoubtedly tho, he'll find some other Columbine-type "He shot those people because he played too many videogames" town to weave his web of lies.
That's what politics is all about. It's not about right and wrong, it's about who you can get to support you. |
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Ming
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| Posted: Tue Feb 06, 2007 7:05 pm Post subject: |
I'm surprised that it took so long to do this. I mean, isn't it obvious that the guy is just some wingnut with a chip on his shoulder and who likes to pick fights?
Regardless of whether or not they dis-Bar him or whatever they do, how many people does he honestly expect will employ him once his behavior is brought to the surface? |
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Shino
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| Posted: Mon Mar 19, 2007 8:22 am Post subject: |
And so it continues. More and more news about Jack.
This time... Take Two is coming after HIM! (first article)
He's saying he is going to strike back (second article). I can't wait to see what happens to him when the court rules in favor of Take-Two. Why wouldn't they... they have in almost every case Jack has put up so far.
| Gamespot wrote: | Take-Two takes legal fight to Thompson
Publisher initiates a new court battle, asks Florida judge to bar lawyer from filing suit to prevent release of Manhunt 2, Grand Theft Auto IV.
By Brendan Sinclair, GameSpot
Posted Mar 16, 2007 3:40 pm ET
For years, Take-Two Interactive has been on the receiving end of legal actions by gaming violence critic Jack Thompson. Now, though, the publisher is taking a proactive tack in its ongoing dispute with the Florida lawyer. As reported by GamePolitics, Take-Two earlier this week filed a complaint against Thompson, seeking to preempt a repeat of last year's legal battle to keep the schoolyard action game Bully from being banned in the state.
In that case, Thompson filed suit to have the game declared a public nuisance, making it a crime to sell it in the state of Florida. While the judge in the case approved the game for sale, he did so only after ordering Take-Two to provide him with a copy of the game so he could review its content for himself. (The judge later filed a complaint with the Florida bar about Thompson's behavior in court.)
In this week's suit, Take-Two is hoping to have a new judge declare that Florida's public nuisance law does not apply to its upcoming releases Grand Theft Auto IV and Manhunt 2, or any games for that matter. The publisher is also seeking an injunction to prevent Thompson from filing suit to prevent the distribution of those games, or even to review their content before release. Finally, the publisher wants to be reimbursed for its attorneys' fees and costs and be granted "such other general and equitable relief as [the court] deems fit and proper."
According to Take-Two, having the nuisance law applied to games would create an unconstitutional chilling effect on the freedom of speech. "The nuisance statutes as applied to GTA IV and Manhunt 2 is unconstitutationally vague because it fails to give reasonable notice of what conduct is prohibited," the complaint reads.
By the statute's wording, that "which tends to annoy the community or injure the health of the community, or become manifestly injurious to the morals or manners of the people" constitutes a nuisance.
According to the filing, "These terms have no clear meaning in the context of videogames, and persons of ordinary intelligence are forced to guess at the meaning and scope of statutes as applied to videogames. ... Because of the lack of clear, defined terms, application of the statutes will restrict a far broader range of videogames than GTA IV and Manhunt 2 because Plaintiff's distributors likely will respond to the uncertainty and fear of penalties by withholding Plaintiff's videogame from the public. As a result, Plaintiff's protected expression will not reach willing recipients."
Interestingly enough, the complaint also references Take-Two and Thompson's legal tango last year over Bully and suggests it ended with a compromise between the longtime rivals. After a request for a temporary restraining order preventing the sale of Bully was rejected and Thompson's appeal denied, the suit says the lawyer "dismissed the Bully lawsuit with prejudice in exchange for Take-Two's agreement to withdraw a motion for sanctions." |
| Gamespot wrote: | Jack Thompson to 'strike back'
US anti-game lawyer vows to make like the Empire in his ongoing saga against Manhunt 2 publisher Take-Two.
By Emma Boyes, GameSpot UK
Posted Mar 19, 2007 7:10 am ET
Last week Take-Two Interactive turned the tables on Miami attorney and vocal game critic Jack Thompson by filing a complaint against his efforts to state that Florida's public nuisance law applies to video games.
The publisher is likely seeking to prevent a protracted legal battle to get its upcoming titles Grand Theft Auto IV and Manhunt 2 released, and to prevent Thompson from seeking injunctions against the games.
Thompson responded by emailing Web site GamePolitics with a statement saying that his prayers had been answered by the lawsuit. He said, "I have been praying, literally, that Take-Two and its lawyers would do something so stupid." He added that the company's "misstep" would now "enable me to destroy Take-Two."
The attorney continued in his statement to threaten that he would be "striking back" this week, although he did not detail what this would entail. He only said, "The pit Take-Two has dug for itself will be patently clear."
Last year Thompson filed a suit against the game Bully (Canis Canem Edit in the UK) attempting to get a judge to declare the title a public nuisance and therefore ban it from sale in Thompson's home state of Florida. The judge approved the game for sale, and later filed a complaint with the Florida bar over Thompson's behaviour in court. |
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Daijaga
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| Posted: Mon Mar 19, 2007 9:20 am Post subject: |
Its like watching a train wreck. Its horrible, deameaning to life, and you feel bad for watching it...but you just cant tear your eyes away. |
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Silver Adept
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| Posted: Mon Mar 19, 2007 11:28 am Post subject: |
Indeed. Perhaps if someone finally just gives him the crushing boot from above and strips him of any possibility of power or influence, he'll finally realize what a public nuisance he is and go away. |
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Shino
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| Posted: Thu Mar 22, 2007 9:21 am Post subject: |
It continues.
Frack files countersuit.
Uses Racial slur? Not cool Frack... not cool.
| Gamespot wrote: | Thompson countersues Take-Two
Lawyer responds to publisher's lawsuit with accusations of intimidation, obstruction of justice, and violation of his civil rights.
By Brendan Sinclair, GameSpot
Posted Mar 21, 2007 7:05 pm ET
Last week, Take-Two Interactive filed suit against Florida lawyer Jack Thompson in a preemptive move to keep him from filing his own suits against the publisher to prevent the upcoming releases of its Grand Theft Auto IV and Manhunt 2 games.
Thompson promised to strike back, and today he filed his response to the Take-Two suit, along with a countersuit accusing the publisher of multiple violations of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO), specifically a continued effort to violate his constitutional rights since July of 2005.
As for his defense in the initial suit, Thompson said it is an attempt by Take-Two to violate his First Amendment right "to petition the government for a redress of grievances." The Take-Two suit seeks to have Thompson barred from filing suit to have its games (or any games) declared a public nuisance in Florida. It would be a crime to sell any game declared to be a public nuisance, effectively banning such games in the state. Thompson said the publisher's suit is unnecessary because the law already has protections built into it.
According to Thompson's defense, "Should Thompson improperly bring such an action against the nuisance of selling adult material to children under 17 years of age, there is an adequate remedy available to Take-Two to defeat such an action and to assess costs against Thompson, as provided by the statute itself. Thus, the attempt in this federal action to preempt the state approach which adequately protects both the public and the defendant in such an action if it has been improperly brought."
Thompson also called the publisher's request to be reimbursed for attorney's fees "absurd," noting that Take-Two filed the suit as a preemptive measure, not knowing what the size and scope of the legal battle with Thompson would be over his suit, should he even choose to file one.
As for the publisher's contention that a nuisance suit from Thompson would violate its own First Amendment rights, Thompson said it couldn't.
"All Take-Two would have to do is submit each game to a court of law to see if it contains material harmful to minors or if it does in fact constitute a nuisance of any kind under Florida law. The games are finished. There is plenty of time to submit the games, and doing so will not in fact impede their release--unless they are in fact harmful to children."
Thompson's defense also appears to contain a number of factual errors and misrepresentations. He claims the Entertainment Software Rating Board found that Take-Two Interactive failed to disclose objectionable content in its role-playing game The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. The ESRB said it found developer Bethesda Softworks was at fault in that matter, not Take-Two.
Thompson also said that Bully was found to have "homosexual sex" hidden in the game, about which Take-Two "forgot" to tell the ESRB and the judge in last year's suit over the game's release. The homosexual activity in that game was limited to kissing, and the ESRB said shortly after that game came out that such scenes were considered in issuing it a rating of T for Teen.
When asked by GameSpot about these incongruities and others, Thompson replied "I'm sorry you can't figure these things out."
With his response to the initial suit out of the way, Thompson's countersuit opens with a few pages of background. He positions himself as a defender of civil rights, mentioning receiving threats on his life when he came out in favor of a fair housing law to end segregation in an all-white town in Ohio 38 years ago.
The background also includes a number of contentious remarks about Take-Two before enumerating his accusations. Thompson refers to Grand Theft Auto: Vice City as a "violence and sex simulation game" that perpetuates racial stereotypes, asking, "What else would one expect of Scottish sociopaths sipping their single malt Glenlivet in between brainstorming software programming sessions?"
He goes on to mention September 11, accusing the New York City-based publisher of "spewing its pop culture sewage to the world's children" from near the former site of the World Trade Center. Calling depraved US pop culture a recruiting tool for extremists, Thompson asks, "What is America's rebuttal to the Islamic Fascist recruitment call? This counterclaim is the rebuttal, not just to these terrorists but to Take-Two."
Later in the countersuit, Thompson draws parallels between himself and Jeffrey Wigand, the Big Tobacco whistle-blower portrayed by Russell Crowe in The Insider, saying that former Entertainment Software Association president Doug Lowenstein threatened to sue 60 Minutes to keep him from appearing on the program.
As for the actual claims in the countersuit, Thompson levied a number of accusations against the publisher. The countersuit reads, "In addition to the RICO predicate act of extortion (intimidation) of Thompson by Take-Two, Take-Two has committed other predicate RICO acts, including but not limited to fraud, distribution of obscene and/or sexual material harmful to minors, as already determined by the United States Federal government...and other predicate racketeering acts. Additionally, upon information and belief, Take-Two, through its Blank Rome lawyers, sought in Alabama to tamper with a witness in a pending criminal case, according to that witness' lawyer."
Thompson's counterclaim also accuses Take-Two of obstructing justice "by derailing an FBI investigation of its criminal infringement of the civil rights of Thompson by persuading the Justice Department, improperly, to drop that FBI investigation of Take-Two. This conforms to the now known politicization of the Justice Department by the Bush Administration on behalf of political cronies, none of whom is better connected than [Take-Two's legal representation] Blank Rome."
According to Thompson, Take-Two had still more help in breaking the law. The countersuit mentions a number of companies and media outlets--including the ESA, Penny Arcade, and GameSpot--as having collaborated and conspired with Take-Two to commit racketeering activities.
Thompson is seeking to be awarded damages and reimbursement of his legal fees. |
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Silver Adept
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| Posted: Thu Mar 22, 2007 10:25 am Post subject: |
There's something seriously disturbed about Mr. Thompson. I wonder why he hasn't had his mental health assessed recently. |
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