I’ve been remiss in my duties. I promised to show off the actual letters that were delivered via private investigator to my home on Saturday morning.
Events prevented that from happening. But I finally got access to a working scanner, and here they are.
Enjoy.
Notice how these people are so upset about a Website but they can’t see to grasp the idea that there IS no “peoriaillinoisan.com.” But there is “peoriaillinoisan.blogpeoria.com.” I own the site on which that blog is hosted, blogpeoria.com. I am not responsible for the content of the blogs hosted there. That’s established law.
Some folks might make note of how it is claimed that the Journal Star deleted the offending comment. I have no idea why the comment is no longer on PJStar.com. I rather doubt the version mentioned in the letter. It’s going to take more to convince me the PJS turned chicken.
And I got a chuckle out of how Globe Energy’s lawyer Jennifer Neilson Connelly has been trying desperately to contact me for months, but somehow managed to find an address on the Saturday before her self-imposed deadline of Monday.
And for the record, in case the lawyer and her client are reading this (which I doubt), the original offending post was removed by the blog’s owner, which is her prerogative and I don’t blame him one bit. I decided to post the offending comment on my own blog, because I don’t believe in letting bastards win.
No one has rang my doorbell to serve me with papers, so there’s no official lawsuit against me yet. But they can do that an any time. Apparently, they think that I’m going to sit around and worry about it. Nope. Sorry. I have no intention to hire a lawyer or even to miss a single day of work over this. The only court that concerns me is the court of public opinion.
So, I’m going to frame these pages and put ‘em up on my wall.
Tags: globe energy, lawsuit
Billy Dennis is a former reporter and editor at small daily and weekly newspapers in Illinois and Missouri. He comments on media, news and politics. He also owns and operates 
Go get ‘em Billy!!
Boy the strong-arm tactics just drip through these letters. Thanks for posting these (& for standing up).
She must have gone to the Billy Dennis school of proofreading.
get em Buhha
you on your way to becoming a mover and shaker of peoria
This attorney is venturing over from Contract and Employment law, over to the field of First Amendment law.
She can have the court enjoin employees from any action that would disclose “allegedly” confidential information that they would have learned pursuant to their employment, but once Mr. Ed is out of the barn and lets the cat out of the bag, you can’t go after the reporter who is saying, “…listen to what Mr. Ed told me…” and get an injunction against the person who did the reporting.
Connelly may in fact know this, but is in a situation where her client is not going to listen to her and is paying her to make threats that she knows will not stand up in court. Attorneys do that all of the time. I understand if you think it should be called “enabling” and point out that attorneys and their clients have a co-dependent relationship. Ponder that for a while.
But Conn
If it weren’t for the money (possibly) involved, it would be fun to see these people in court. She conflates the claim of disclosure of confidential company information, which was never posted on yours or associated sites so far as I can tell, with the “defamatory” remarks of one commenter who used to work for the thin-skinned Brits who hired her. She can’t keep her story straight: in letter 1, the alleged defamer Marcus Allen “agreed to cause the remarks to be removed” after getting a lawsuit threat from Globe/Connelly; in letter 2, the Journal-Star is said to have removed the comments because “continued posting … is unlawful.” Note well that she declares that without a court order in hand or a law to cite (the court order she mentions in letter 1, if it exists, applies to the unnamed confidentiality breacher, not to Allen).
Reading the local press accounts of Globe, David Jones, and his unhappy employees, you come across several negative comments in the reported text of the stories, separate from the readers comments. Those in the Journal-Star remain. Interesting to see, though, that a WEEK story quoting Marcus Allen that was online a week ago is not available today (“Former Employees at Globe Have Harsh Words”; you can still find the cached Google version of it). I guess the Journal-Star heard from the attorney and/or Globe, because I don’t believe Allen’s comments could have been un-posted except with the paper’s cooperation. I wonder if WEEK got a threat, too.
Tempting to write this all off as a tempest in a teapot, but what you appear to have is a bully going around trying to intimidate anyone who’d say anything bad about him. Would be interesting to know what the Journal-Star heard from these people. Whether WEEK did, too. Whether Marcus Allen or anyone else publicly identified as complaining about the company can say what sort of threats they got. Whether Ms. Connelly did in fact file a lawsuit against the unnamed employee and what sort of order the court granted (that would all be a matter of public record if it happened). I did, in fact, email Ms. Connelly myself early in the week inquiring about this matter and what laws she was citing in going after people. She hasn’t responded to me yet.
Until I hear a definitive “No, we’re not going to sue you,” I have to assume the threat still stands. So, I’m just going to keep bringing it up and mentioning Globe Energy by name