Heartland, USA — According to a report from Law360, an Illinois federal judge has ordered a so-called “porn troll” attorney to pay more than $47,000. The attorney attempted to avoid paying fines in a copyright infringement lawsuit over allegedly unlawful access to adult entertainment websites by internet users.
On November 23, U.S. District Judge David R. Herndon said that John Steele of the now-defunct group Prenda Law must pay Anthony Smith for half of a sanction that was supposed to be shared equally between Steele and co-principal, Paul A. Duffy, who passed away in 2015.
The sanctions came after Judge Herndon found that Steele, Duffy and co-principal Paul Hansmeier lied to the court years earlier. Prenda Law claimed that the firm was insolvent in an attempt to avoid paying an award of attorneys’ fees handed down while they represented adult entertainment company Lightspeed Media Corp. in a copyright infringement case. The suit accused Smith and approximately 6,600 co-conspirators of using hacked passwords to gain unauthorized access to Lightspeed’s adult entertainment websites.
Judge Herndon found that Steele and Duffy attempted to obstruct Smith from obtaining discovery relating to the insolvency claims, awarding over $94,000 in fees as a discovery sanction. In his November 23 ruling, the judge found that Duffy’s share of the sanction should be shouldered by Steele as a contempt sanction, since Smith would be unfairly left to foot the remainder of the bill otherwise.
Lightspeed filed suit in December 2011, accusing a John Doe, later named as Smith, and the others of illegally accessing the sites.
The company withdrew the case in March 2013 after Judge Herndon’s predecessor, U.S. District Judge Patrick Murphy, denied its motion to compel internet service providers to reveal which of their customers had accessed their websites without authorization.
Read the full report on this case/issue here.
