DEFAMED! No, Actually.

Ah, Right Wing Conservatives. They sure do love that 2nd Amendment. The 1st….Not so much.

 

December 1st, 2013 is a date I won’t ever forget. I commented on a post on conservative celebrity Brian Kolfage’s Facebook page, and all hell broke loose. For the next year and a half, I found myself fighting off legions of violent and psychopathic right wingers, seeking to punish me in his name.

Then in June of 2014, Brian Kolfage decided to sue me for “defamation.” By September 11th 2015, I was dismissed with prejudice, never having stepped foot in a court room. And Brian Kolfage should be thanking whatever god he worships we never did, because he would have wound up bankrupt and in jail. Wanna know why?

It’s a long story, involving multiple parties and multiple victims. I was nothing more than a blue collar factory worker, and Brian Kolfage was a growing celebrity of the far right. He had thousands of fans, connections to dozens of right wing websites and blogs, as well as associations with personalities like Mike Huckabee, Brian Kilmeade, Gary Sinise, and Donald Trump Jr.

David, meet Goliath. Allies and some online liberal media support would have been helpful, but they had already tucked tail and fled after seeing what this personality cult was capable of.

After all, it was standard practice on Kolfage’s Facebook page to post your addresses, phone numbers, employers, and any info they could get their hands on. Then his fan base would come after you like rabid animals.

Sometimes, you did absolutely nothing wrong to receive this attention, as was the case with a 61 year old cancer patient named Jan Vrotsos.

Nevertheless, I became his #1 Target for the next year and a half, and this is my story.

After he targeted me, his fans made inquiries, asking what was going to be done about “the troll” and “the commie faggot.” So, Brian began posting claims over the course of the next few months that the FBI and the police were going to arrest me, and that he filed numerous reports and complaints with law enforcement agencies.

So I responded to him on my humble little Facebook page he monitored daily that I ABSOLUTELY LOOK FORWARD to talking with any law enforcement. After all, Brian had all my personal information, including my cell phone number, which was receiving about a dozen threatening phone calls a day. So, had he made any report or complaint, I would surely receive a phone call inquiring about the details of my alleged “crimes.”

I never did.

No member of the law enforcement community called me or attempted to contact me. I assumed at the time, had he actually filed a complaint, it was laughed at and thrown into the garbage shortly after. However, he doubled down on his frequent claims that “The Law” was coming to get me, serving only to fuel the bloodlust of his fans. It also gave many “patriots” a perverse sense of justification for their stalking and death threats.

So, consider that first bit above a quickie introduction, or debrief, into the mad, raving lunacy that gestated on the Senior Airman Brian Kolfage Facebook page.

Now for the meat and potatoes. This blog o’ mine is focusing on one thing here; the police report claims. These are kind of a big deal. Repeatedly calling a private citizen a criminal, insisting that police are involved… Let us review these claims. And then we will listen to the Pima County Sheriff’s Department tell me something interesting over the phone.

Brian’s father in law jumped in to let me know I should hope the police arrest me first, before I get assassinated.

The implosion of Kolfage’s lawsuit began in July, so I hadn’t bothered pursuing the KO evidence that would have annihilated any semblance of innocence or victim status in a courtroom. Once the lawsuit was over, I decided to find out if any police report or complaint was ever filed against me by Brian Kolfage.

Shit, they told me to sue him for defamation! Because that is precisely what defamation is; the action of damaging the good reputation of someone, with malice aforethought.

The police reports were not the only thing. Brian repeatedly attacked my military service in the United States Navy, claiming I was a fraud and a liar who never served, and urging his thousands of fans to spread these claims with “any veteran page.”

Then he claimed I threatened to rape his baby. No…seriously. I’m not making this up. In a manic post filled with unfunded allegations, Brian hurls a charge of Baby Rape as the cherry on top. Naturally, he reported this to the police. OH WAIT, no he didn’t.

His wife, Ashley Kolfage, hopped in routinely to play the part of “Damsel in Distress”, claiming the police were over her house “every other day,” and that she was “living in fear.” Naturally, they would have several police reports and evidence to back these claims up. Oh, wait, no there isn’t.


Gosh, if you forget that Ashley Kolfage is a pathological liar that committed multiple counts of Wire Fraud, you could almost start to feel bad for her.

Meanwhile on Facebook, Brian and Ashley Kolfage were creating fake pages with pictures of my apartment complex WHILE THE LAWSUIT WAS ONGOING. That is…the plaintiffs were threatening the defendant. 

Prior to filing his lawsuit, Brian staged a fundraiser. He needed money to go after “liberal extremists” who “threatened the life” of his wife and daughter. Usually, when someone threatens to kill women and children, the police are called and an actual investigation takes place.

But we all know THAT didn’t happen! I went from wanting to rape his baby, to wanting to kill it along with his wife. Naturally, I was interrogated by law enforcement. Oh wait, no I wasn’t.

In the very lawsuit he claimed he was raising this money for, these allegations do not exist. Kind of an important thing to leave out, don’t ya think? No evidence to back these claims were ever presented. That makes this fundraiser, which accumulated over two thousand dollars, fraudulent.

Let’s just assume for one second that I did in fact “defame” Brian Kolfage; that is, repeatedly and maliciously spread lies for the sole intent of damaging his name. What were the damages? What possible influence do I have over the public?  Now, what influence did Brian have? With his fans, his resources, and his celebrity, who actually has the reach and ability to damage someones reputation?

Back in May of 2015, Jan Vrotsos spoke with the same Sheriffs department, to see if any police reports were ever made against her. Only one complaint was filed by Brian. It was in February of 2014, about some guy none of us had ever heard of, named Kevin.

The only existing police report given to Jan Vrotsos was revealing. In it, the police determined no threat was made. But there were other details that wound up hurting his cause.

In the report, Brian Kolfage admitted to being a “public figure,” (a title he tried to deny in court as it would have hurt his argument for defamation), to posting Kevin’s personal info, and to prank calling his employer.

To successfully sue anyone for defamation is rare. The burden to prove malicious intent is on you.  If the defamer actually BELIEVES his/her claims, however, it is not considered malicious. Yea. This is why people like Alex Jones don’t get sued. You’d have to prove he doesn’t really believe the shit he vomits.

You also have to prove damages. You have to be able to show you suffered as a result of the defamatory statements. This does not mean damages as a result of opinions, criticisms, or jokes, especially if they all are a product of your own actions in public.

Will the amount of damages be worth two years in and out of court? Or the legal fees? Can the person you are suing cover both the damages and all costs? Even if you have a case, you can walk away from court owing more than you recovered. Which is why most lawyers will refuse to take a defamation case.

The bar for defamation of public figures is set even higher. Much higher.

Not only are public figures subject to scrutiny and criticism, but satire as well. This is why every politician and celebrity isn’t dragging us all into court. Brian’s attorney tried to claim he was not a public figure. The admittance on his one and only police report dated February 2014, four months before he filed his lawsuit, kinda made it official. Unless you count Facebook, where Brian’s page listed him as a public figure.

“But Louie,” you ask, “what exactly did he call defamation in his lawsuit?”

Well, dear reader, most of the complaint tries to pin several social media accounts that posted insults and criticisms of Brian Kolfage on me, under the conspiracy theory that I ran the multiple accounts they came from. Not only is this absurd and untrue, it’s impossible to prove. You cannot subpoena Facebook for private info over a civil court case.

At best, Facebook can allow a court order, demanding the person print out their account activity. There is just one problem. If you deleted certain comments or pages you ran, which you could do immediately upon receiving such a court order, it will not reflect in your account activity.

Problem number two; in order to get such a court order, you have to know the legal name of the person running the profile or page, the URL, and most importantly…the email associated with the account. This makes it nearly impossible. IP addresses are inadmissible in a civil court case, too.

The irony here is that Logan Elia of the Rose Law Group, Brian Kolfage’s attorney, actually lost a court case for this very reason, earning him a few mentions on RipOff Report and other complaint websites.

Speaking of ambulance chasing lawyers, there is a thing called “Due Diligence.” It is the responsibility of the attorney to vet his client and make certain every claim made is provable or contains enough evidence to support your claims or argument.

Logan Elia failed to do this in almost every capacity, making the entire lawsuit a stillborn upon filing. It would have never passed review had it made it there. Here is one claim made in the lawsuit, debunked right under it with my evidence:

Now, I never called Brian a “pill addled junky”, but regarding the Kenyan birth of our president…

It is common for people to call someone a “nazi” or a “racist” in the political circus. In fact, it’s expected. But when I called Brian a nazi and a racist, they decided that was defamation:

Of course, I was merely basing my opinions off of what I saw. Not just from what I found racially insensitive by him, but what was often posted by his fans on his page.You be the judge.

I believe in free speech. But comments like this might cause someone to call you a racist or a nazi. Do you really see a Federal Judge viewing my opinion as defamation when presented with these examples? (And there is an entire folder of this stuff)

Finally, one last example that will make you laugh till you shit! I want you to realize that this was actually in his lawsuit and used as an example of “defamation.”

I never even said this to begin with. It was another profile I was accused of running. But seriously folks…this was filed in a District Court.

Lets wrap this shit up. A public figure with a large online presence and fan base made numerous claims that I was breaking the law, and that he filed dozens of complaints with local, state and federal law enforcement. Then he added that I was threatening him, threatening to kill his wife and child, threatening to rape his baby, never served in the military, and then provided 200,000 people with my address and phone number.

And he sued ME for defamation?  When he announced his lawsuit, he and his lawyer had already planned out the publicity, appearing on local news stations in Arizona before the suit was even filed. His connections told his story with dramatic bravado, painting me as the most evil person on the planet.

He exploited his service related injuries, his wife and his child to present himself as the ultimate victim. None of the news agencies, bloggers or websites ever bothered to contact me for comment, even after I contacted them demanding a chance to respond.

One TV station did give me two minutes, then cut out everything I said to preserve as much of their original narrative as possible. Eventually, all four television stations pulled the coverage and articles within a few months, realizing they backed the wrong horse. Rather than give me my right to respond, they went for the Nuclear Option, eliminating any evidence they had even covered the lawsuit.

The breaking news of his lawsuit in June of 2014 was paraded around the internet. How it concluded over a year later, the most important part of any court case, was apparently not newsworthy. Logan Elia was forced to drop Brian as a client in July of 2015, and this prompted Brian to reach out to me and throw in the towel. The Rose Law Group’s actions was mostly due to me obtaining the audio files Brian Kolfage illegally recorded inside the District Court.

He was in debt, swamped in legal fees, and had to rob his own Mentoring charity to pay for it all. Yes, you read that correctly. Brian Kolfage had crowdfunded over $20,000 for a fake charity to mentor wounded service members recovering in military hospitals, and stole every cent.

 

I didn’t take the easy way out, the “Non-Disclosure Agreement” his lawyer and the magistrate judge badgered me to sign for 3 hours.  When you come from a working class Italian-American household, sometimes the only thing you got is your big fucking mouth. So I used it to tell them they can all go fuck themselves. And it fucking worked. BIG TIME.