[Infowarrior] - Judge: Prenda lawyer must sell condo, liquidate assets to pay $2.5M debt

[Richard Forno]

Judge: Prenda lawyer must sell condo, liquidate assets to pay $2.5M debt

by Cyrus Farivar - Dec 4, 2015 12:47pm EST
"The debtor has a pattern and practice of dishonesty with the courts."

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/12/judge-prenda-lawyer-must-sell-condo-liquidate-assets-to-pay-2-5m-debt/


A federal judge in Minnesota has ordered one of the men behind the notorious Prenda Law group to liquidate his assets. Paul Hansmeier must now sell his condominium, among other assets, in order to pay back $2.5 million of debts more quickly rather than having the case drag out for years.

"Here, the debtor has a pattern and practice of dishonesty with the courts," US Bankruptcy Judge Kathleen Sanberg said during the Thursday hearing. She ordered Hansmeier to convert his Chapter 13 (wage earner's plan) bankruptcy filing to a Chapter 7 (liquidation). Under Chapter 13, Hansmeier could have paid his creditors much more slowly.

"This case was designed for one purpose only, to thwart the collection efforts of debtors," the judge added. "It was not because the debtor now wants to pay creditors in full."

The move is the latest in the lengthy saga of Prenda Law, a porn copyright troll scheme which began to collapse in 2013.

Hansmeier and his colleague John Steele are believed to be the masterminds behind Prenda Law, the name under which they acquired copyrights to porn films and then sued thousands for allegedly downloading them. They are believed to have made several million dollars until the project fell apart in 2013 under a barrage of sanctions. This spring, a federal appellate judge in California flatly described Prenda Law as "extortion."

Last month, Minnesota's Office of Lawyers Professional Responsibility requested that Hansmeier be disbarred or suspended. And in June 2015, Hansmeier, Steele, and their third colleague Paul Duffy were found in contempt of court by an Illinois federal judge.


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