GamePolitics has learned that controversial Miami attorney Jack Thompson faces a disciplinary hearing before a referee appointed by the Florida Supreme Court.
The pending judicial review follows a recent recommendation by the Florida Bar that five counts of professional misconduct against Thompson should proceed to the state’s high court for action. If the charges are eventually upheld, Thompson could face disciplinary action up to and including disbarment.
Among the counts of misconduct facing Thompson, three are directly related to the activist attorney’s ongoing campaign against video game violence. Those counts involve Thompson’s participation as plaintiff’s attorney in Strickland vs. Sony, a high-profile lawsuit he brought against several video game industry defendants in Alabama in February, 2005.
In the suit, Thompson represented the families of two Fayette, Alabama police officers and a police dispatcher murdered by an 18-year-old Grand Theft Auto player in 2003. At the time of his arrest for the killings, Devin Moore reportedly said, “Life is like a video game. You have to die sometime.” Moore, subsequently convicted of the murders, now sits on Alabama’s Death Row. Thompson was not involved in the criminal case against Moore.
As reported by GamePolitics in November of 2005, Alabama Circuit Court Judge James Moore (no relation to Devin), presiding over Thompson’s lawsuit against Sony, Rockstar, Take Two, GameStop and Wal-Mart, revoked Thompson’s Pro Hac Vice (visiting) license to practice law in Alabama, essentially throwing Thompson off the Strickland case.
In upholding a pair of complaints against Thompson by Judge Moore, the Florida Bar alleges that the outspoken attorney violated numerous professional standards both before and after his Pro Hac Vice status was revoked in Alabama. Among the misconduct alleged by the Bar is Thompson’s assertion that a local Alabama attorney claimed he could fix cases before Judge Moore. Among other documents, the Bar’s complaint points to a November 28, 2005 motion filed by Thompson with Judge Moore which says:
It is clear that (Judge Moore), whether the ‘fixer’ is the reason or whether the ‘fixer’ has combined with other improper influences to jettison justice in this case, must no longer preside over this case
Also cited is a July, 2006 e-mail allegedly sent by Thompson to Judge Moore, the state Bars of Alabama and Florida as well as an attorney with law firm Blank Rome, which represents the video game industry defendants in the Strickland case. That e-mail reads:
You’re the guy who wants to give (Grand Theft Auto publisher) Take-Two my scalp. You chose to believe people that you knew were thieves and liars, and now you are their useful SLAPP Bar complainant… These are your corporate criminal buddies, Judge Moore. These are the folks with whom you made your bed, the folks whom your good friend said he could fix the case.
A third count to be considered by the Supreme Court involves a complaint made by Blank Rome, Thompson’s opposing counsel in the Strickland case. Among its numerous allegations is a charge that Thompson directly contacted Take Two CEO Paul Eibeler. Included in this count is a December, 2005 message, allegedly sent from Thompson to Eibeler which reads:
Maybe the absolutely dumbest you did was hire Philadelphia’s Blank Rome as your law firm of choice to represent you in courtrooms… Blank Rome, also very importantly, managed to lose all motions to dismiss our wrongful death suit in Alabama… We expect to try this case in 2006. We expect to take at that trial every single penny Take-Two currently has.
The two remaining counts alleged by the Florida Bar relate to Thompson’s professional conduct in relation to his ongoing battle against the airing of shock radio in South Florida.
Asked to comment by GamePolitics, Thompson said:
A referee is appointed and we have a trial. The Supreme Court reviews it later. The trial isn’t going to happen, however. I have sued The Bar in Circuit Court. It’s in far more trouble than I am.
Thompson declined GP’s request to share a copy of the current lawsuit against the Florida Bar. However, an earlier federal suit filed by Thompson against the Bar in October of 2006 was dismissed by U.S. District Court Judge Paul Huck in late December. In ruling against Thompson’s suit versus the Bar, Judge Huck wrote:
Thompson submits nothing beyond wild accusations of a vast conspiracy against him that the Bar is unfairly proceeding against him.
It is unclear at this point when a hearing on the Bar’s allegations may take place.
The final boss is hurt! Use the power of the Triforce and banish him to the Sacred Realm!!
Honestly, the Bears should be ashamed of themselves for such a pitiful self-destruction. They had so many opportunities to grab that game and run with it, and while I understand the game was rainy, for God's sake the Bears are an outdoor team and there is no excuse for five freaking turnovers.
I was just looking at the release lists for Wii, all the games rumored or stated to have online modes are listed as either TBA or first quarter 2007. Nothing concrete, so that tells me that the network is about to go live with a myriad of games at once.
Expect Pokemon to be the first of them all, with MKWii, BWii, the ass load of Konami games about to hit and most likely, a fps from someone. I'm thinking either Retro's MP3 or something from the team that made Geist who's been hard at work for a while now. If it's MP3 it better be more substantial than the Echoes multiplayer. I'm sure Nintendo would suck on just about anything for a FPS IP with multiplayer that's regarded as the next gen Goldeneye/PD. But even the next gen PD and Goldeneye didnt live up to that hype.
The fat topper to the whole equasion will be Brawl. It could be in the middle of the releases or it could be the end of the year blow out - the Christmas must have (just like Melee), which is probably more likely.
So all in all, i'm thinking early March for Nintendo to go hot and fire up the servers. I think alot of the wait has to do with Nintendo's first party LAN adapter getting on store shelves. Again March should be magic time there too.
In it's proper form anyway. On the PSP, with both the original and a full 3D remake (2D gameplay though), and to top it all off, Symphony of the Night with some minor graphical enhancements.
Well, that's ONE game on the PSP I actually want, and it's a re-release!
Mind you, I already own Symphony, and mind you, I can already play it on my PSP thanks to hacked firmware and a special ISO ripper program that converts the game disk into a file compatible with the latest PSP firmware's new PS1 game emulator. But, I don't have Rondo and even compressed that's a pretty large chunk of memory that game is currently taking up, so this is still something I want and the first PSP game I'll be getting since Portable Ops.
Quote:BOSTON, Massachusetts (CNN) -- Authorities arrested a man in connection with electronic light boards depicting a middle-finger-waving moon man that triggered repeated bomb scares around Boston on Wednesday and prompted the closure of bridges and a stretch of the Charles River.
Meanwhile, police and prosecutors vented their anger at Turner Broadcasting Inc., the parent company of CNN, who said the battery-operated light boards were aimed at promoting the late-night Adult Swim cartoon "Aqua Teen Hunger Force," condemning Turner for not taking proper steps to end the bomb scares earlier and for not issuing an adequate apology to the city.
Turner Broadcasting said in written statements the devices had been placed around Boston and nine other cities in recent weeks as part of a guerrilla marketing campaign to promote the show.
"We apologize to the citizens of Boston that part of a marketing campaign was mistaken for a public danger," Phil Kent, CEO and chairman of Turner Broadcasting System Inc., said in one of two statements issued by the company.
"As soon as we realized that an element of the campaign was being mistaken for something potentially dangerous, appropriate law enforcement officials were notified and through federal law enforcement channels, we identified the specific locations of the advertisements in all 10 cities in which they are posted. We also directed the third-party marketing firm who posted the advertisements to take them down immediately."
Peter Berdovsky, 27, a freelance video artist from Arlington, Massachusetts, was facing charges of placing a hoax device in a way that results in panic, as well as one count of disorderly conduct, said Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley. The charge is a felony, she said.
According to his Web site, Berdovsky is a graduate of the Massachusetts College of Art and a founding member of a video artists group called Glitch who goes by the nickname "Zebbler" and sings in a band called "Superfiction."
Authorities believe Berdovsky was "in the employ of other individuals" as part of the marketing campaign, Coakley said. "How exactly this was executed, we are still investigating." Berdovsky is scheduled for arraignment at 9 a.m. Thursday in Charlestown District Court.
Adult Swim shares channel space with Cartoon Network, another Turner enterprise, but the adult-themed network is a separate entity.
The devices displayed a "Mooninite" -- an outer-space delinquent who makes frequent appearances on the cartoon -- greeting passersby with an upraised middle finger. But the discovery of nine of the light boards around Boston and its suburbs sent bomb squads scrambling throughout the day, snarling traffic and mass transit in one of the largest U.S. cities.
"It had a very sinister appearance," Coakley told reporters. "It had a battery behind it, and wires."
The statement from Kent said Turner Broadcasting deeply regrets "the hardships experienced as a result of this incident." (Read the full statement)
Mayor calls situation 'outrageous'
But Coakley, Boston Mayor Thomas Menino and others said the statement offering an apology was not enough, and did not rule out criminal charges or a civil suit to recover the estimated hundreds of thousands of dollars it cost the city to respond to the bomb scares.
Menino told reporters he received a call from a Turner spokesperson about 9 p.m. but had not yet returned it. "I think the city deserves a call, not from a press person, but from somebody in the corporate structure of Turner," he said.
"I just think this is outrageous, what they've done ... It's all about corporate greed."
He and Coakley said Turner did not give authorities the locations of the devices and said they learned the devices were Turner's when the company sent a fax to City Hall at 5 p.m.
Officials believe there are 38 throughout the Boston area, and 14 had been recovered as of 9 p.m., Coakley said. "We heard nothing official from the people who could have resolved this earlier."
Some of the devices were placed on private property, she said, which "raises a lot of questions about, at the very least, the responsibility of anybody who would do this."
Asked about whether Massachusetts authorities would have the jurisdiction to arrest people out of state, Coakley said she believed they would if the offenses took place in Massachusetts. Turner Broadcasting's headquarters is in Atlanta, Georgia.
Boston Police Commissioner Edward Davis called it "unconscionable" that the marketing campaign was executed in a post 9/11 era. "It's a foolish prank on the part of Turner Broadcasting," he said. "In the environment nowadays ... we really have to look at the motivation of the company here and why this happened."
Earlier, Boston police spokeswoman Elaine Driscoll called Wednesday's incidents "a colossal waste of money."
The discovery of the light boards led state, local and federal authorities to close the Boston University and Longfellow Bridges and block boat traffic from the Charles River to Boston Harbor. In addition, the Pentagon said U.S. Northern Command was monitoring the situation from its headquarters in Colorado Springs, Colorado, but said none of its units were dispatched to assist.
The first device reported was at the Sullivan Square commuter rail station, near the suburb of Somerville, Wednesday morning. Wednesday afternoon, four other devices were reported -- near the Longfellow and Boston University bridges over the Charles, at New England Medical Center and near the intersection of Stuart and Columbus avenues in the city itself, and four more turned up over the course of the day.
Rep. Ed Markey, a Boston-area congressman, said, "Whoever thought this up needs to find another job."
"Scaring an entire region, tying up the T and major roadways, and forcing first responders to spend 12 hours chasing down trinkets instead of terrorists is marketing run amok," Markey, a Democrat, said in a written statement. "It would be hard to dream up a more appalling publicity stunt."
Turner Broadcasting said the devices had been in place for two to three weeks in Boston; New York; Los Angeles, California; Chicago, Illinois; Atlanta, Georgia; Seattle, Washington; Portland, Oregon; Austin, Texas; San Francisco, California; and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
A Turner source said the displays were a component of a third-party advertising campaign conducted by a New York advertising firm, Interference Inc., which had no comment on the incident.
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