Kaplan VS Salahi: Lee finally sues a college student
I want to keep readers updated without going too much into the details. Though I have not yet been served, I have been made aware of the case and I have been able to pull up the relevant documents on the Internet. In short, Lee Kaplan, middle-aged investigative journalist extraordinaire has finally followed through on his promise to sue me, a college student.
Anybody is able to view the court documents by visiting this Alameda County Courts website and entering the case number: BS06288332. I have posted image scans of the original claim and of a subpoena he filed to University of California, Berkeley, requesting that my academic records be produced. In the reproductions below, I have blurred out Lee's addresses and telephone numbers out of principle, even though they are now public record. I have not removed the one listed under my name because it is not accurate, and relevant in a way that I may elaborate on in a later post (short story: Lee Kaplan fraudulently posed as an investor and approached my business, asked for a mailing address to mail a proposal, and then attempted--but failed--to service me there).
Here is a copy of SC-100, the Plaintiff's Claim and ORDER to go to Small Claims Court. Some things to note: Lee alleges that a letter sent by me to his employers threatened to harm their business, made defamatory claims against him, and cost him his job, for losses amounting to $40,000, though he is only suing me for $7,500 because it is small claims court. In fact, I have no recollection or record of ever e-mailing his employers (I'm not really sure who they are, but I know that they pay well, and only hire journalists with the highest ethical standards). I have requested that a copy of that e-mail be produced for me, along with a copy of the letter from his employer that claims he lost $40,000 because of something he accuses me of doing.
I am not worried about those charges. However, I received a notice from the Registrar at the University of California, Berkeley, informing me that the received a subpoena from Lee Kaplan requiring them to send my academic records to him. In the subpoena form shown below, Kaplan requests information on all addresses that UC Berkeley has on file for my person. I will be fighting this subpoena, on the grounds that it is unnecessary and intrusive, and possibly illegal.
That's it for now. I have absolutely no doubt that this lawsuit is linked to my campus activism in favor of Palestinian human rights (activism which Lee exaggerates quite a bit), and that it is an attempt to shut this blog down because of the work it has done unearthing Lee's lies. It won't work, but we'll let the justice system sort that out.
Update 2/25/2007: The court date has been scheduled for February 28, 2007 at the Berkeley Courthouse at 2PM. About the UC Berkeley subpoena, I was able to convince the university at the time that compliance with the subpoena may be illegal. But some grievances: (1) the Office of the Registrar at the University misread the subpoena and claimed to me that it was for all of my academic records, and were planning to send those had I not stopped them; (2) the Office of the Registrar did not realize that the subpoena itself was facially defective and the portion which should describe the documents requested in a reasonable matter was in fact completely blank; (3) the Office of the Registrar put the burden on me to object to the subpoena, rather than their own legal team which should be protecting the privacy of students and the integrity of their contact and academic information. If I have time at some point in the future, I plan to try to reform the University policies that made those errors possible.
From http://kaplanwatch.blogspot.com/2006/10/kaplan-vs-salahi-lee-finally-sues-me.html
