Here’s A Way to Voice Your Outrage Over the Shutdown of the Rentboy Website

[+ quoththeraven]

NOTE: This is substantially the same text that Daddy ran on the front page of the reviews the week before Thanksgiving with a $2,000 goal and a November 23, 2015 deadline, which has since been extended to December 18, 2015. We have also increased the goal to $4,000.

 

This post and the front page announcement were supposed to run concurrently. That they didn't is my responsibility. I am the one who dropped the ball -- not intentionally, but it doesn't matter why. They still didn't get run at the same time.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

DHS’s seizure and shutdown of Rentboy.com and the arrests of its employees is a senseless attack on marginalized communities that is at odds with its core mission of protecting the United States from terrorist attack. A group of us – me, rvwnsd, VeryHappyCustomer and Steven Kesslar, with the support and advice of others -- have put together a "Supporters Unite" fundraising page as a vehicle for donations to the Rentboy.com Legal Defense Fund to fight this government overreach.

 

Contributions go directly to the client trust account at the law firm of Sher Tremonte LLP to pay legal fees and expenses incurred in defense of Rentboy.com CEO Jeffrey Hurant against federal criminal charges.

 

Whatever your view of Rentboy’s business savvy, customer service, or Jeffrey Hurant’s performance as CEO, he’s the one with the incentive to fight back. Indigent defendants (a category that may well apply to all of the Rentboy defendants) are entitled to legal representation at no cost; however, such representation usually involves a cost-benefit analysis of continued litigation that often tips in favor of ending a case via a plea bargain.

 

Representation at no cost is often not the best choice if one wants a lawyer’s complete and exclusive attention in order to fight charges on principle, particularly if doing so involves questioning or reinterpreting existing law. And without a vigorous defense, law enforcement has every incentive to go after other websites that allow individuals to exchange information about consensual adult activities.

 

This fundraising effort is not limited to escorts, clients, users of Daddy’s Reviews or Message Center or the LBGTQ community. It’s open to anyone concerned about the government’s arbitrary actions and the ways in which those actions hurt the LGBTQ and escorting communities. Contrary to what the authorities say, they are making these often-marginalized communities less safe, not more so.

 

Please donate and let the powers that be know this prosecution is not going to be the easy win they thought it would be. We have set a fundraising target of $4,000 by December 18, 2015, which is the new deadline for indicting Jeffrey Hurant, extended after a hearing last week. Additional fundraising targets may be set if developments warrant.

 

Contributions may be made online via Supporters Unite. For further details, including the disposition of funds in excess of the expense of Jeffrey Hurant’s legal defense, go here.

 

If you prefer, you can send a check directly to the law firm itself rather than using the website.

 

SherTremonte, LLP

80 Broad Street, 13th Floor

New York, NY 10004

 

Please put matter #311 in the memo field.

 

We realize some folks might not wish to use their personal credit cards. The best way to overcome this hurdle is to use a prepaid VISA or MasterCard gift card. Many grocery and convenience stores sell them for a small fee and they often do not ask for the payee name. You may register it with any name and address you choose.

 

Be sure to use the same address on the donation page as you used when you registered the card. If you do not wish to use your own address, you can use this Supporters United PO Box when you register the prepaid gift card and/or fill out the address box on the Defense Fund donation page:

Citizens for Internet Freedom

P.O. Box 489

Desert Hot Springs, CA 92240

 

We're also looking into setting up an ongoing fund to assist the other Rentboy defendants.

[rvwnsd]

bump

[mike carey]

I think this is important for the reasons that QTR has raised. Yes, there are seven accused under the DHS backed complaint, and this fundraising effort is only supporting one of them. Supporting this effort is not to ignore the others, rather it recognises that there is a limit to what can be done and concentrates on one part of the battle with the DHS. At least to start with.

 

The issue at the heart of this is judicial precedent. If Jeffrey loses this case or if he and all the accused plea bargain, that sets a precedent for future actions by the government. It could well provide an impetus for more adventurous investigations, which to the extent that they affect escorting or LGBTI people would have a chilling effect on our ability to live our lives as we wish. Assisting Jeffrey with his legal defence will make it more likely that he will be able to defend himself and thereby forestall further government adventurism.

 

Although I'm at one removed from the direct effects of this, I thought it was important to contribute, and made a small donation shortly after the Supporters Unite page was set up.

[+ Cash4Trash]

I was happy to donate to the legal fund. For me this isn't as much about Rentboy as it is about getting the government out of our bedrooms. I see it as part of a long list of current social movements -

legalizing marijuana and a saner drug policy, the death with dignity movement, Black Lives Matter, a more rational background check for guns...don't shy away from the fight.

[BaronArtz]

Is THIS the fundraiser you are talking about? http://www.rentboyfund.org/

 

Or is this yet another one? The fund raising target of $4K is surprising, to say the least.

[mike carey]

Is THIS the fundraiser you are talking about? http://www.rentboyfund.org/

Yes, that's it, as you would have seen when you had followed the links in QTR's and my post. It's a small target for us but part of a larger one. You would have noticed that Kurtis Wolfe and Steven Keslar also have fundraising pages as part to this effort to support Jeffrey.

[BaronArtz]

That's what I thought, but I wanted to be sure. What happened to the $29K (out of a goal of $250K) that was raised? Was that spent already? On what, exactly? What is the $4K for? Can we have some transparency about this, please?

[+ Cash4Trash]

Fair enough Baron. Transparency about what happens with the money is essential. I've made that point in private messages.

If people feel they've been played it's bad but I know people involved and trust them completely.

[mike carey]

That's what I thought, but I wanted to be sure. What happened to the $29K (out of a goal of $250K) that was raised? Was that spent already? On what, exactly? What is the $4K for? Can we have some transparency about this, please?

That is the broader fundraising objective of Jeffrey's defence team. The rest of the $29K is in the legal defence fund, but it is separate from any efforts in this forum to raise money. How the money has been spent is a moot question, we don't even know if it has been spent. The $4K is part of that. It's pretty clear that the funds are intended to fund Jeffrey's legal defence, but I don't think we can expect to have line by line control about how it is spent. Looking for appropriate transparency is entirely reasonable, but only if you are actually considering making a donation. Otherwise why would you even care?

[BaronArtz]

Daddy Sez: You've been Grinched...

 

http://si.wsj.net/public/resources/images/AR-AH057_Seuss__G_20140828183355.jpg

[mike carey]

BaronArtz, I understand that you may not agree with the way this conversation is going. This discussion is about, given that defending the Rentboy 7 is important, how should we do that. It is not about whether we should defend them. If you want to discuss the broader question of how we should respond to people online you should do it elsewhere. This thread is about recognising the importance of the Rentboy case and doing something about it.

[+ quoththeraven]

I understand the transparency concerns. Here's the deal: The money is going into Hurant's client trust account maintained by the law firm. What's different here is that someone other than Hurant is making the payments and that it's being crowdfunded.

 

It's also clear the law firm is involved with the crowdfunding. At a minimum it reviewed the materials, but seeing as the funds are all going directly into the client trust account, it's more likely that it set up the crowdfunding itself.

 

As I said in this thread, the easiest way for an attorney to be disbarred is to fiddle with client trust accounts. The money in them can only be used to pay legitimate and reasonable fees and expenses. So your contributions are secure and are being used for legal fees and expenses, nothing else. That's what a trust account means: the firm acts as a fiduciary in its handling of the funds in that account. No one is running off to the Cayman Islands with them.

 

Also, since the attorney who answered questions we had is the one in charge of pro bono work at the firm, it seems possible to me that this is a combination crowdfunded/pro bono effort in which the law firm treats fees that aren't covered by crowdfunding as pro bono contribution by the firm. Hurant may be doing such things as paying for expenses (copying, mail, fax). I'm unwilling to ask, though, because whether the firm is working pro bono isn't our business.

 

Here's the problem: achieving more transparency than that isn't possible, as everything other than amounts drawn down and hours billed is covered by attorney-client privilege (the billing detail reveals strategy and work product) and the firm justifiably would not want to make any of it public, as the privilege is lost if there is a non-inadvertent disclosure to outsiders. Remember, the U.S. Attorney's office knows how to use the internet, too. There may be announcements made on the fundraising site on how much money has been applied to bills (doubt there'll be one about number of hours), but legal defense takes priority now. Besides, depending on how long ago the firm was retained, the firm may not even have generated a single bill yet.

 

Anyone concerned about this could contact the law firm directly, but that this is would be an issue for $50 and $100 contributions baffles me. If we're talking contributions of $1,000 or more, then it makes more sense.

 

When one person or entity is paying someone else's legal fees, it makes sense to ask for redacted bills. (Or the other person or entity may be involved enough to be considered a joint client.) When it's being crowdfunded, not so much. The firm would have to confirm that the person involved made a contribution. It's more work. It's more hassle. Is it really worth it?

 

If you expect or want the firm to make an accounting to every contributor (some of whom will not be reachable because of the names used) or to those who ask for it, then you probably should not contribute. I just don't see that happening because the only way to do it would be to mail copies of bills with everything but hours, rates, total fees, expenses, and payments applied redacted, and that takes time and money that no one is paying for. It'd be kinda like those 30 e-mails Jock123 received from a client.

[+ honcho]

Supporting this effort is not to ignore the others, rather it recognises that there is a limit to what can be done and concentrates on one part of the battle with the DHS. At least to start with.

 

The issue at the heart of this is judicial precedent. If Jeffrey loses this case or if he and all the accused plea bargain, that sets a precedent for future actions by the government. It could well provide an impetus for more adventurous investigations, which to the extent that they affect escorting or LGBTI people would have a chilling effect on our ability to live our lives as we wish. Assisting Jeffrey with his legal defence will make it more likely that he will be able to defend himself and thereby forestall further government adventurism.

 

I literally bought into this argument, and contributed. I've mentioned in other threads that due to some family

financial challenges, I haven't been able to hire for about the past dozen years or so, but I considered this case

such an intrusion on my personal liberty (and values) that I've contributed twice; one on the previous campaign

and once on this one. If you look at the list , you see a contributor Honcho AtDaddies listed.

 

It has been estimated that the likely cost of conducting and effective defense may run $250,000. There's

no way in the blue blazes that my personal singleton contribution would make more than a scratch in that,

but I'm hoping that a lot of us will contribute, and I'm happy to target what little I can afford to that.

[rvwnsd]

Fair enough Baron. Transparency about what happens with the money is essential. I've made that point in private messages.

If people feel they've been played it's bad but I know people involved and trust them completely.

 

I literally bought into this argument, and contributed.... I considered this case

such an intrusion on my personal liberty (and values) that I've contributed twice; one on the previous campaign

and once on this one. If you look at the list , you see a contributor Honcho AtDaddies listed.

 

Thank you both for your commentary and for your support.

 

I signed on to this initiative and created the Supporters Unite fundraising page because I think the Brooklyn U.S. Attorney's actions are wrong. In my opinion, she is trying to make a name for herself and is using this to do so. The Manhattan U.S. Attorney has prosecuted people who have allegedly committed large-scale violations of securities and banking laws and the Brooklyn attorney has decided to prosecute Rentboy. That's just ridiculous. At my employer, using company resources to benefit oneself is not only a terminable offense under our code of ethics but a potential violation of the law. I can't not support someone who is attempting to prove, in a court of law, that this is wrong-headed nonsense.

 

I have questions about transparency and, frankly, mild pain around funding the defense of someone who made some very stupid statements in the months prior to his arrest. The thing is, making stupid statements does not warrant prosecution under Federal law. This is the United States of America, not the Soviet Union or Nazi Germany.

 

That being said, to continuously raise objections is as ridiculous as the prosecution's actions. The concerns have been addressed more than once. If anyone has a question about the management of the funds they can click the link contained in QTR's post or contact the law firm that is holding them. Their name, address, and case reference number is contained in QTR's post as well as in the body of the Rentboy Defense Fund page. Regarding the relationship between our fundraising effort and the main Rentboy Defense Fund effort, a read of the Rentboy Defense Fund main page will reveal that our fundraising page supports that fund.

[Guy Fawkes]

http://www.cityofmonticello.net/images/pages/N1079/BINGO.jpg

I signed on to this initiative and created the Supporters Unite fundraising page because I think the Brooklyn U.S. Attorney's actions are wrong. In my opinion, she is trying to make a name for herself and is using this to do so. The Manhattan U.S. Attorney has prosecuted people who have allegedly committed large-scale violations of securities and banking laws and the Brooklyn attorney has decided to prosecute Rentboy. That's just ridiculous. At my employer, using company resources to benefit oneself is not only a terminable offense under our code of ethics but a potential violation of the law. I can't not support someone who is attempting to prove, in a court of law, that this is wrong-headed nonsense.

[+ sam.fitzpatrick]

The latest deadline for an indictment is this Friday, December 18.

 

Contributions may be made online via Supporters Unite. For further details, including the disposition of funds in excess of the expense of Jeffrey Hurant’s legal defense, go here.

[+ quoththeraven]

Just to give you some idea of how expensive litigation is, here's a tweet about a GoFundMe campaign for a book blogger who was sued for defamation by a boutique publisher for a post she made revealing the publisher's financial problems, including tax liens, delayed or missing royalty payments, late payments to employees, some of whom had been laid off in a downsizing, while the company's owner (also an author published by the company) lived and spent lavishly.

 

Even though the blogger should have won, imo, she wound up settling (presumably without paying the plaintiff anything) and published her adversary's "corrections" to the record. She didn't have to retract the article or take it down, but she is dropping ads and cutting back on posts on her blog (it's actually a group blog, but she owns and runs it). In effect, the plaintiff, which is known for its outrageous litigiousness, got pretty much everything it wanted.

 

The total attorneys' fees -- for a civil case in which discovery was sought from the defendant only, not the plaintiff (so only half of the normal pretrial prep took place) - were $132,578.35. And that's with a discount and not at Manhattan rates. The GoFundMe campaign ultimately raised $55,000, although the later revelation that the defendant not only has a day job as a lawyer (actually an administrative law judge) but is herself a successful author writing in the genre her blog covers, with all the attendant questions about her ethics and honesty, likely resulted in requests for refunds. So she and her husband are bearing the cost of upward of $77,500 in legal fees.

 

The sad thing (or one of the sad things) about this is that the most competent lawyer involved was the lawyer representing an author owed royalties who tried to intervene in the case, which was settled before the judge ruled on her motion. And as you may be able to tell, I have even less respect for the blogger who was the defendant than I have for Jeffrey Hurant, but her article was if anything a public service to the community of writers and readers. The case was filed to shut down and chill First Amendment-protected speech because it was negative, plain and simple. I can't call speech that cost the author $77,500 out of pocket free. That's pretty damn fucking costly.

 

Just FYI: Because she is employed, has a steady income, and is part of a two-income household, none of which are true of me, I didn't contribute to the GoFundMe campaign. (I also didn't understand why she didn't anticipate that a defamation suit might be filed and get her ducks in a row. She's a lawyer and traded on that when writing her blog. Jeffrey Hurant is not.) But I did tweet critically about the publisher she wrote about under the hashtag #notchilled (most recently today). Some of my tweets were retweeted or liked by others, which was part of the purpose of the #notchilled hashtag, the brainchild of author (and former Supreme Court clerk and law school professor) Courtney Milan.

 

For more context from the author who filed a motion to intervene in the defamation lawsuit, see this.

[+ VeryHappyCustomer]

This is a political issue that affects us all. Remember the long game.

 

By all accounts, Jeffrey Hurant and I would not get along, but that was irrelevant to my decision to donate. I support the cause, not the poster boy. Please join me in holding your nose and telling Homeland Security to get the fuck out of our bedrooms.

 

VeryHappyCustomer

[mike carey]

This fundraiser has gone pretty quiet recently. I figured I couldn't gripe about that if I wasn't doing anything, so I have made another small donation. The importance of letting the DHS know that their targetting of the gay community by way of a cynical attack on male sex workers is simply unacceptable.

[rvwnsd]

The talk about the legitimacy of escorting prompted me to remind folks that the fundraising effort is still going on.

[+ quoththeraven]

As has been discussed elsewhere on the forum, Jeffrey Hurant, former CEO of Rentboy, was indicted by a federal grand jury today.

 

http://www.companyofmen.org/threads/rentboy-ceo-jeffrey-hurant-indicted-promoting-prostitution-money-laundering.111245/

 

I have only read one article about it so far - the Newsday one cited in my post on the above thread - but what I come away with is that the involvement of top-notch legal counsel, as well as the outcry over the seizure, helped enormously. It's possible that the six employees and former employees arrested with Hurant will not be charged with anything or will have charges dismissed after a period of time.

 

The legal defense fund, and the defense team it enabled, has helped everyone, not just Hurant. The better the defense Hurant's attorneys put up, the better the deal for the rest because Hurant was always going to be hit hardest. In that regard, this is truly the Rentboy defense fund, not merely the Jeffrey Hurant defense fund.

 

Now that there's an indictment, it's clear this is not dying down and going away. If you benefited from the existence of Rentboy, or if you're outraged over the post-arrest shifting justification for the seizure and prosecution or the Feds intruding into the bedroom, please contribute to the Rentboy legal defense fund via Supprters Unite or some other method.

 

http://rentboyfund.org/supporters-unite

 

Thank you.

[caliguy]

As has been discussed elsewhere on the forum, Jeffrey Hurant, former CEO of Rentboy, was indicted by a federal grand jury today.

 

http://www.companyofmen.org/threads/rentboy-ceo-jeffrey-hurant-indicted-promoting-prostitution-money-laundering.111245/

 

I have only read one article about it so far - the Newsday one cited in my post on the above thread - but what I come away with is that the involvement of top-notch legal counsel, as well as the outcry over the seizure, helped enormously. It's possible that the six employees and former employees arrested with Hurant will not be charged with anything or will have charges dismissed after a period of time.

 

The legal defense fund, and the defense team it enabled, has helped everyone, not just Hurant. The better the defense Hurant's attorneys put up, the better the deal for the rest because Hurant was always going to be hit hardest. In that regard, this is truly the Rentboy defense fund, not merely the Jeffrey Hurant defense fund.

 

Now that there's an indictment, it's clear this is not dying down and going away. If you benefited from the existence of Rentboy, or if you're outraged over the post-arrest shifting justification for the seizure and prosecution or the Feds intruding into the bedroom, please contribute to the Rentboy legal defense fund via Supprters Unite or some other method.

 

http://rentboyfund.org/supporters-unite

 

Thank you.

I've read all the charges. Every charge is laughable. The money laundering is simply them doing inter state commerce like they've done for many years. Now with the prostitution charge that gets changed into money laundering.

 

Then there's the sex trafficking charge. Yeah, they rented out ad space for the traffickers but it's not anything beyond that. Nothing any other site wouldn't happily be doing.

 

Then there's all the other little (he said this, he said that) shit that they're throwing at them to get something to stick. All BS.

[rocky]

Can we stop this thread; it's over, it's done, move on.

[+ WmClarke]

Can we stop this thread; it's over, it's done, move on.

Were the charges dropped?

[+ honcho]

The charges were not dropped. I heard a rumor that it will cost Hurant on the order of 1.25 million to

mount a good defense.