Among the silliest things that Bill Schmalfeldt tried was to pretend to be some kind of Internet tough guy. Seven years ago today, he attempted Channelling a Corleone.
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Several people have commented that the Cabin Boy™ seems to be channeling Fredo.
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BTW, when Schmalfeldt sued me and the opportunity to settle came up, he refused. Apparently, I made him an offer he couldn’t understand.
Bill Schmalfeldt’s lame attempts at cyberthuggery using manipulated images have often caused him trouble when a copyright holder filed a DMCA takedown notice. Six years ago today, I provided him with Some Copyright Information.
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Late Thursday night, a friend sent me a link to a picture of my late wife that had been posted on Schmalfeldt’s FatManPodcast website. In a comment in the caption Schmalfeldt posted with the picture, he claims the image was used under the Fair Use doctrine and that “Hoge can suck my frittatas!” I’m not the copyright holder. The copyright for that portrait of my wife belongs to the professional photographer who took the picture. If the photographer discovers Schmalfeldt’s appropriation of his work and takes action, he’ll do it on his own. For now, having that picture up on Schmalfeldt’s website highlights two things: 1.) his general ineptitude at image manipulation and 2.) his meanness.
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BTW, here’s the picture of Mrs. Hoge that Schmalfeldt tried to manipulate. It was take less than two weeks before she died. AI print of it sits in the bookcase in my bedroom. It’s the first thing I see each morning.
I was the first of several people who were able to hold Bill Schmalfeldt accountable for his online harassment. However, he didn’t obey the first peace order issued against him, continuing to contact me through (at)mentions on Twitter. For brief period during the first peace order, he managed to tweet about me rather than to me. Nine years ago today, I optimistically thought Perhaps He’s Learning.
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Consider this Twitter exchange. (H/T, @rsmccain)
Note that the Cabin Boy was able to delete the @wjjhoge in Aaron Worthing’s tweet before replying. It looks as if that email from the State’s Attorney’s Office hit home.
Good.
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Of course, I was overly optimistic. It took multiple restraining orders in several states and his losing several LOLsuits for him to begin to learn his lesson.
Lawfare hasn’t been the only thing I’ve had to put up with from Team Kimberlin. They also tired to intimidate me with various forms of cyberthuggery. This post about Anonymity and Cowardice ran nine years ago today.
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The use of the term “anonymous coward” to describe someone who posts a comment without using his real name or a known nom de cyber goes back to the early days of Usenet. If Samuel Clemens were to comment here as Mark Twain, he would not be considered an anonymous coward. (Note: Someone using a known nom de cyber (i.e., @BreitbartUnmask) may be a coward but doesn’t really meet the definition of anonymous coward.)
OTOH, these “commenters” are clearly anonymous cowards:
The abusive, often obscene, content of the comments submitted under these names compounds the cowardice of the sender(s). He (they) doesn’t (don’t) have the courage to speak openly.
I’ve received around a hundred such “comments” over the past few months. I’ve posted a few of them. Most have been so juvenile that my reaction has been to shake my head and file them away. Some, however, have contained seriously perverted messages that raise concerns about the stability of the sender. They have caused my family to take some additional measures to assure our safety.
There are some really sick weirdo trolls on the Internet.
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Bullies always seem surprised when a victim punches back, and I’ve rarely settled for only twice as hard.
I was the first of several people to hold Bill Schmalfeldt accountable for his cyberthuggery and harassment undertaken on behalf of Team Kimberlin. The Cabin Boy™ and his enablers tried multiple times to spin Schmalfeldt as a victim rather than perpetrator. This I’m Not Making This Up, You Know post from eight years ago dealt with one of their lamest attempts. The email was sent a week before the hearing that resulted in the original peace order granted against Schmalfeldt being extended.
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I have just received the following email—
Matt Osborne
To: hogewash@wjjhoge.com
Legal NoticeDear Mr. Hoge:
As Section 3-803 of the Maryland Criminal Law Code allows for a person to make such a request on behalf of another, I am officially and legally asking you to cease and desist all harassment of William M. “Bill” Schmalfeldt of Elkridge, Maryland. This includes referring to Mr. Schmalfeldt by such derogatory and defamatory “nicknames” as “Cabin Boy” or “Oedipal Bill” or anything other than his actual name. This includes the filing of any additional frivolous charges against him. Mr. Schmalfeldt can not preclude you from writing about him, but he considers derogatory nicknames, especially when they are spread by your followers all over the Internet, to be a textbook definition of harassment. Also, as all your previous criminal charges against Mr. Schmalfeldt have been dismissed by the Carroll County, Maryland, State’s Attorney, but you continue to file charges with the expectation that the outcome will somehow be different, Mr. Schmalfeldt considers the continued filing of these charges as harassment and demands that you cease at once.
Failure to abide by this request will be seen as a violation of the above named section, and you can expect Mr. Schmalfeldt to take appropriate steps.
Sincerely,
Matt Osborne
I will have no comment on this until after I have consulted with counsel.
UPDATE—After consulting with counsel, I choose to hold my response until 9 December.
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Of course, even if Osborne’s claims were true, none of the acts complained of in that email were possible triggers for a Maryland peace order.
BTW, 57F Matt Osborne’s (a)osborneink Twitter account is still suspended.
The original reason I started writing about Brett Kimberlin and his minions and enablers was reporting on an unconstitutional gag order that had been issued as part of a peace order he had obtained against Aaron Walker. The gag order was overturned on appeal, and the peace order was denied during a de novo trial in a higher court. Indeed, all of the peace order petitions filed by Kimberlin and his PR flack Bill Schmalfeldt against people reporting on their activities were denied.
OTOH, one peace order sought against Brett Kimberlin was granted, and two peace orders I sought against Bill Schmalfeldt were granted as well.
Schmalfeldt appealed the first peace order and its extension. This post, In Re Schmalfeldt v. Hoge 2, was posted seven years ago today.
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Petition Docket No. 29 for the September, 2014, term of the Maryland Court of Appeals is Schmalfeldt v. Hoge, the Cabin Boy’s™ appeal of the extension of the peace order in place against him. His appeal paperwork (such as it is) is shown below. A respondent is allowed 15 days in which to answer a petition for a writ of certiorari. That time begins running either when the petition is completely filed (with any supplement) or, if no supplement is filed, when the time allowed for its filing runs out. The Cabin Boy’s™ time ran out yesterday without his filing a supplement, so I have until 13 May to file my answer.
I went by the Clerk’s Office at the Court of Appeals to see what he had actually filed. Since he has not raised any new issues of law and since the Court denied his petition for certiorari the last time around, I see no reason to file anything further. I doubt the Court will change its mind about the validity of Schmalfeldt’s legal arguments. There’s always the chance that they might, but the odds are small. Even if they grant his petition, all that means is that he has permission to appeal, not that he has won.
Let me make a couple more points.
First, the Gentle Reader should note that the Cabin Boy™ is only appealing the extension of the peace order. Even if he were to win his appeal, the original order would still stand, so he will be an adjudicated harasser regardless.
Second, a peace order is a civil proceeding. Maryland’s expungement statute applies only to criminal proceedings. Thus, peace orders cannot be expunged.
UPDATE—Fixed a typo. 13 April should read 13 May.
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It turned out there wasn’t any reason to file a response. The Court of Appeals denied the petition for certiorari.
While I was the first, I wasn’t the last person to have some sort of protective order issued against Schmalfeldt. He wound up with at least a dozen such orders issued in at least five states. One was issued to protect a toddler.
The members of Team Kimberlin clearly wish they could have been influential denizens of the Interwebz, but they’ve failed. There so unimportant that they’ve even had to forge harassing emails and comments to their websites to draw attention themselves. This Bonus Prevarication Du Jour is from seven years ago today.
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Ace investigative journalist Bill Schmalfeldt (Stop laughing; I’m not to the punchline yet.) says he’s receiving emails from someone calling himself “Nomen Nescio.” He asked me about that name during our mediation session in January, and I told him that it was Latin for “Name not known” and that the term was used on legal documents before “John Doe” was common.
It turns out that it’s also used as a blind return address by some anonymous remailers. Over the past month, I’ve received several emails routed through dizum.com, and the all were supposedly sent by “Nomen Nescio” whose email account is “nobody@dizum.com.” It took all of 15 seconds to pull down the headers from the first such email and about a minute on Google to find the dizum.com website.
It’s hosted on a server in Holland. Note the Dutch flag on the dizum.com browser tab.
I’ve never used such a service. While I have had occasion to encrypt the contents of an email (usually because of sensitive client data), I’ve never had to mask my email address.
My best guess is that the “Nomen Nescio” who sent the email shown above is the same person who has tried to post obscene comments here at Hogewash! under various obviously fake names. But that’s just a guess.
UPDATE—I never suggested that the Cabin Boy™ has sent any of the “Nomen Nescio” emails to himself. I would have thought that they came from another source. OTOH, one wonders if these don’t constitute a tacit admission …
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Losers.
Seven years ago today, I wrote my first post about Brett Kimberlin. It was titled No Thugs Zone.
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Fellow blogger and Maryland resident Stacy McCain has had to move his family out of the state because of threats related to blogging about Brett Kimberlin. He is not the only blogger suffering abuse from Kimberlin.
Mr. Kimberlin was unwise in choosing to pick a fight with the blogosphere. He is likely to find that, while we don’t always agree with one another, we have each other’s backs when the freedom of the Internet is threatened. Mr. Kimberlin and those who have supported him (I’m looking at you, Ms. Streisand) have bitten off more than they can chew. The pushback is just beginning.
UPDATE–The McCain family is having a ton of unforeseen expenses because of their sudden move. I just hit his tip jar. Why don’t you?
UPDATE 2–Expect more, a lot more, about this on Friday.
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I’m not done with him yet.