| Lower Profile MeToo
Defendants Like Lumenis Still Use Scorched
Earth Tactics After Harvey Weinstein
By Matthew
Russell Lee, Patreon
BBC
- Guardian
UK - Honduras
- The
Source
SDNY COURTHOUSE,
May 8 – In an era when abuses
long kept silent are
increasingly being surfaced
and even litigated, there are
still attempts to silence
reporting on the abuses, a
continuation of the abuses.
On May 7
Inner City Press reported in
detail on the case against
Peter Nygard, here, at which
where exactly he lives and his
history of retaliation was
discussed before U.S. District
Court for the Southern
District of New York Judge
Edgardo Ramos. Many readers in
many places liked it. It
similarly covered the
proceeding, abruptly ended,
against Jeffrey Epstein before
SDNY Judge Richard M.
Berman.
Those are high profile cases
and are reported on in detail,
apparently without
interference. But in lower
profile cases the old-school
attempts to silence and even
censor coverage continue.
On May 6 a
California employers' lawyer
defending the medical device /
tattoo removal firm Lumenis
against sexual harassment
charges submitted a letter to
a Federal judge in New York
urging "intervention" against
Inner City Press for reporting
on the case against his
client.
The
lawyer, Todd Wolffson of
Irvine-based Carothers DiSante
& Freudenberger LLP,
injected into the docket "to
bring an issue of concern to
your attention. We feel we
have a professional obligation
to do so. We have recently
become aware that an
unannounced, outside blogger,
Matthew Russell Lee1 , was on
the telephonic conference line
for the proceedings on April
24, 2020, at 10:40 a.m. (Doc.
No. 97)."
So
who is this employers' lawyer
who is so ethical he simply
must, as a matter of
"professional obligation," try
to get a Federal judge to
sanction a journalist who
wrote about the case against
his client?
Well, as
an initial matter, Todd
Wolffson advises business
that, for example, "If an
employee posts on a public
site and uses the employer’s
name, the employer has the
right to review the posts –
and in fact, the employer
should be routinely making
sure its name, brand and
online reputation are not
improperly tarnished."
Tellingly, Wolffson has
written that “Before Harvey
Weinstein, I think most HR
departments were trying to fly
low and avoid the radar on
this kind of thing." And now?
If you can't fly low - with no
media coverage of sexual
harassment cases - then,
apparently, offered scorched
earth defenses beyond those
employed by Jeffrey Epstein in
the past and, it was learned
on May 7, Peter Nygard in
Canada.
Now he and
his Lumenis clients Steven
Gerhart, Todd Rosa, Greg Mack
and Trenton Williams have gone
beyond that - they believe
that any press coverage they
don't like should be
threatened with sanction from
a Federal judge. It's
corporate censorship.
But
even in this case, in
fairness, it's not just
Wolffson. Signing on to his
letter were Alessandra M.
Messineo Long and Segal
McCambridge's Carla
Varriale-Barker. What are
their practices?
Beyond
Inner City Press written
response into the docket,
which took the entire
afternoon of May 7 and made
impossible coverage of cases
before SDNY Judges Castel,
Pauley, Carter and Stein (a
super group sounding law firm,
that), Lunemis' complaint
ignores the specific practice
at issue. Judge Alvin K.
Hellerstein in open court
often conducts case management
conference at a table next to
the gallery full of people,
trying to see dispute
resolved. These are not closed
sessions. Case closed? Watch
this site.
***
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