Government

Kraken Witness Files Defamation Suit Against Dominion For ... Oh, Who The Hell Even Knows?

The Kraken is dead, long live the Kraken.

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Sidney Powell’s misbegotten election law suits may have crashed and burned, but their spawn swim on, blissfully undaunted by the Rules of Civil Procedure, local tort statutes, and even objective reality.

To wit, here’s a hypothetical from a case filed yesterday by Kraken witness Terpsehore Maras:

Say that Plaintiff, who is a resident of Ohio, drafts an affidavit which is submitted in a case in Arizona, making allegations about Defendant, a voting machine company which is registered in Delaware and located in Colorado. Defendant files a defamation suit in federal court in DC against a third party in which it quotes the Arizona judge saying Plaintiff and her fellow affiants “reach implausible conclusions, often because they are derived from wholly unreliable sources.” For reasons entirely unclear, Plaintiff decides to file her own defamation claim against Defendant alleging $3.4 billion — with a B! — of damage.

What venue is proper for this exercise in legal frivolity?

The answer is the Middle District of Tennessee. Obviously! Because, uhhh, Williamson County buys equipment from Dominion Voting Systems.

Which is how IRL lawyer Russell Newman wound up docketing this clunker in Nashville on behalf of his client Terpsehore Maras, aka Terpsichore Maras, aka Terpsichore Maria Helen Lindeman, aka Terpischore Lindeman, aka Terpsichor Maras-Lindeman, aka Terpsichore Maras-Lindeman, aka Terpsichor Maras, aka Terpsichore P Lindeman, aka Terpsechore Maras-Lindeman, aka Tore Maras-Lindeman, aka Terpsichor Lindeman, aka Terpsechore Maras-Lindeman, aka Terpsehore P Maras-Lindeman, aka Terpsehore Pete Maras-Lindeman, aka Terpsehore Maras-Lindeman.

If that seems like a fair few aliases, it’s because the Plaintiff appears to have a history of making representations about herself which might not stand up to a correctly-spelled Google search. According to the State of North Dakota, which compiled the above roll call, the Plaintiff violated the state’s consumer fraud protection laws by setting up multiple supposedly charitable fundraisers without disbursing the proceeds to the intended recipients. She also claimed to have served in the military for 22 years, during which she was supposedly awarded a Purple Heart. In fact, Defendant washed out of the Navy after eight months, as reported by the Washington Post. Nor had she received any advanced degree, as multiple websites including her own Linked In profile attested.

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In reality, “Tore” Maras is a rabidly pro-Trump podcaster who free rants online about the latest conspiracy theories for a couple of hours every day.

It’s probably a coincidence that Sidney Powell chose not to reveal Plaintiff’s identity to the Arizona court when she submitted an affidavit in which “Tore” “proved” that the election was rigged, right? Because an officer of the court would never make specious claims about the danger facing an “expert witness” to obscure the fact that said witness had major credibility problems.

AHEM.

Tore complains that Dominion defamed her when it called her a “wholly unreliable source” in its own defamation suit against Sidney Powell. Tennessee shields communications made during judicial proceedings under the litigation privilege — as do Ohio, Colorado, Arizona, and DC. Nevertheless, Tore would like $3.4 billion for damage to her precious reputation plus “a narrowly tailored permanent injunction requiring the removal of all the Defendants’ statements that are determined to be false and defamatory and enjoining the Defendants from repeating such statements in the future.”

Prior restraint. Drink!

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Defendants have not disproved any allegation in Plaintiff’s Affidavit Defendants have not disproved any Paragraph in Plaintiff’s Affidavit. Defendants cannot disprove any Paragraph in Plaintiff’s Affidavit.

Which is cool and all, but in the second paragraph of her affidavit, Defendant claims to be a “trained Cryptolinguist” and to “hold a completed degree in Molecular and Cellular Physiology and have FORMAL training in other sciences, such as Computational Linguistics, Game Theory, Algorithmic Aspects of Machine Learning, [and] Predictive Analytics among others.” But according to the Post, she has a BA in biology from the University of Kentucky.

What kind of lawyer would file such a POS suit, all but courting Rule 11 sanctions? If you guessed it was some asshole with “#BareFace #Maskless Christian, Husband, Dad, U.S. Marine and Lawyer who is fed up w/ evil, unconstitutional Church lockdowns, voter fraud and corruption in USA” in his Twitter bio, you’d be right.

Ain’t he a peach? And in his uniform, too.

Here are some career highs from Counselor Newman’s own website:

Drafted a Motion for Summary Judgment for Spoliation of Evidence for franchise owner of a multi-billion dollar national food chain after the Plaintiff alleged breaking a tooth after biting a bone in a ground beef chalupa. Case settled for nuisance value (i.e., barely over four figures) after the opposing party “lost” the material evidence.

​Used imminent threat of deportation against an incarcerated illegal alien Plaintiff to strong-arm a nominal settlement.

Well, aside from the issues of venue, jurisdiction, privilege, frivolity, prior restraint, and LOLOL $3.4 billion in damages, this one looks like a winner!

Elizabeth Dye lives in Baltimore where she writes about law and politics.

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