Harold W. Vadney III is a wannabe translator who lies about his credentials. In August 2007, I exposed him on the now-defunct Network of Independent Linguists’ Discussion Forum. He has now set up a blog devoted to telling lies about me and others. This is my reply. To comment or for further information write to Richard_Benham_AU-StopVadneysLies[at]yahoo.com.

Monday 21 April 2008

Despicable cur!

Hello. Some of you may think I am going a bit over the top here with the invective. I’m sorry, but I can’t help it faced with further evidence of just how low that Vadney creature can sink.

Now that the trial in his blatant attempt at extortion masquerading as a defamation suit is over, I can examine and discuss the evidence given at the depositions.

PERJURER



One thing I find is that Vadney claimed to have been a member of the Institute of Linguists since 1981. This was in a deposition that took place after the Vadney’s much-vaunted (by him) correspondence with the IoL. Even if he ever was a member of the IoL (which the IoL has denied yet again even after the Vadney’s famous correspondence with them), of his own admission he let his membership lapse many years ago. He even made a posting to the IoL forum asking for advice on how to reinstate his his membership. So this was no mere slip-up; this was a deliberate lie.

DEFAULTER



I also note that, according to the late Mr Bleezarde’s testimony, the Vadney took out election advertisements in his newspaper, the Ravena News Herald, but never paid for them. The bill was over $US600. And of course, he then had the chutzpah to sue Mr Bleezarde over an advertisement which described him (Vadney) as, among other things (equally true), a bad payer.

Maybe the Vadney thought that inserting paid advertising in the News Herald somehow entitled him to a guarantee that nothing adverse about him would be published on its pages; he seems to have enjoyed such a cozy arrangement with another newspaper, Lisa Deyo’s The Ledger, but what can you expect from a rag that publishes a multi-page spread on the opening of a salon as “news”? Or maybe the Vadney intended to Mr Bleezarde’s company deduct the cost of his campaign advertisements from the damages settlement. He has just about enough hubris to have seriously thought he was going to win!

Even as the grotesque farce of the Vadney’s frivolous defamation suit was being played out, he was in a catfight on the TranslatorsCafé Hall of Fame and Shame over his failure to pay a translator. On his own account of events, the Vadney led this guy to believe that a second job would be forthcoming, and so the translator agreed to bill both jobs at the same time. The Vadney then took this as carte blanche to delay payment on the first job even though the second job was not forthcoming. The amount was small (€24.30), and the two seem to have resolved their differences, but the story is typical of the man’s sordid petty avarice (not that he lacks more grandiose avarice: witness the tens of millions he was claiming in his sick joke of a defamation suit).

Friday 18 April 2008

The silence is deafening!

It is now over a week since How-Old the fwaudulent twanslator posted to his blog. The posting was—if this is possible—even more inane and pointless than usual: under the heading “The reason Comments are Moderated”, we have the following gem of pithy prose:
You don't really have to wonder that species like Richard Benham and Scott Horne get to publish their ridiculous babblings and why sites and blogs really cannot be left to the good sense, decency and intellect of visitors.

Just have a look at the 4-word, almost English comment left by one of our remarkably gifted retarded visitors below in the previous posting.

Makes a cretin cockroach look brilliant!

Sorry, How-Old, but nothing would make a cretin like you look brilliant, although you do manage to make a cockroach look clean and respectable. One wonders, however, about this “comment left [...] in the previous posting” which we are invited to “Just have a look at”. At the time of writing (8 days later), there is no comment in the previous posting, and there have been no comments for some months on How-Old’s blog...and even then they were his own comments.

However, all this is but a side-show. How-Old has been gloating in anticipation for months about his defamation suit against Joan Ross, John Luckacovic, the late Richard Bleezarde and Bleezarde Publishing Co. Inc., promising to keep us posted. Since that somewhat surreal posting of 10 April, a fair bit has happened on this front. The cases against Mrs Ross and Mr Bleezarde and his publishing company were summarily dismissed, Mr Bleezarde died (after having the last couple of years of his life poisoned by Vadney’s malicious and spiteful prosecution), and Mr Vadney spent 3.5 days in court in a pathetic attempt to convince the jury that he had a case against Mr Luckacovic, calling his enemies as witnesses (life’s tough when you alienate everybody you know), only to have this case, too, thrown out by the judge.

[Aside: Readers may note that the Vadney is fond of calling those who oppose him “pariahs”. Some time ago, he described Joan Ross and John Luckacovic as “pariahs in this community” on the TranslatorsCafe website (a moderator has moved the posting to a closed forum); more recently he has described Scott Horne and me as pariahs. I suppose we are supposed to conclude he is popular. One has to wonder how popular he is if to defend his “good name” he feels compelled to call as witnesses someone against whom he has just lost a defamation suit, this defendant’s husband, and a judge he has twice tried to have kicked out of office by complaining about him and a third time by running against him in an election. Oh, there was his sister. Where were his legions of supporters? In is fœtid imagination, where they’ve always been!]

The legal bills of the various defendants must have amounted to hundreds of thousands of dollars. At least some of them were insured, but of course the cost of frivolous actions by idiots like Vadney gets passed on to all policyholders in the form of increased premiums.

Why did Vadney even take such a hopeless case? The answer is simple: he hoped to extort the defendants into settling. Implicit in his approach is a two-pronged threat: Even though he cannot win, the legal expenses of defending a suit in the US are enormous, and even though he can be sued for malicious prosecution for bringing a suit with no prospects of success, he has nothing, and will just go bankrupt if his victims try to execute the judgment against him. Imagine the ignominy of trying to make money in such a shabby way!

Nothing to say, Vadney?

Thursday 17 April 2008

Finally the fireworks? Well, some damp squibs....

After the ignominy of having three of his four ridiculous defamation cases summarily dismissed, well-known wannabe translator, wannabe judge and genuine fraud, charlatan and perjurer How-Old William Vadney III had his defamation suit against the final remaining defendant, Mr John Luckacovic, dismissed without the defence being called upon to present a case. By all reports, the Vadney sorely tried the jury’s patience, spending several days presenting bullshit, calling unsympathetic witnesses who could only harm his case, asking a huge number of irrelevant questions, most of which were disallowed by the judge, speaking at times too quietly to be heard and at other times so loud the judge had to tell him to reduce the volume.... Such a fruitless waste of time for all concerned: the defendant, his lawyer, the jurors, the witnesses, the judge, the court staff....

Let us hope that the Vadney, who is a completely despicable lowlife piece of trailer-trash shit (witness how he hounded the innocent Mr Bleezarde to his grave), will finally be declared a vexatious litigant and that this nonsense will come to a long-overdue end.

Of course, now that this case is out of the way, there is nothing to stand in the way of criminal prosecutions against the Vadney. For example, he claimed in depositions that he had been a member of the Institute of Linguists since 1981 or so, knowing that to be false. It would be nice to see him doing time for perjury over that one, although for all I know the authorities could have much more serious charges to lay against him.

My congratulations go to all the successful defendants. Pity it came too late for Mr Bleezarde: one again, my condolences to his family and friends.

Wednesday 16 April 2008

RIP Richard Bleezarde, publisher

It is with some sadness that I must report the passing yesterday of Mr Richard Bleezarde, late publisher of the Ravena News Herald. Mr Bleezarde had been sick for some time with a heart condition, and spent several months in hospital.

It is impossible to tell whether the stress of Harold William Vadney’s totally vexatious and frivolous multi-million-dollar lawsuits against Mr Bleezarde and his company hastened his decline, but we can be sure that the last months of Mr Bleezarde’s life, which can hardly have been pleasant, were unnecessarily worsened by the need to deal with them. As the judge found just over a week ago, Harold William Vadney’s case against Mr Bleezarde and his company was totally without merit and had no prospects of success. But Mr Bleezarde was still obliged, at a time when he should have been left in peace to finalize his affairs and take leave of his loved ones, to contend with Vadney’s grotesque manœuvrings and posturings, incurring large legal expenses. Shortly before his death, Mr Bleezarde was trying to sell his publishing business, presumably to pay his legal bills. So many sacrifices to the vanity, stupidity and cupidity of a vile and loathsome piece of subhuman lowlife trailer-trash garbage.

Harold William Vadney, hang your head in shame. You mercilessly pursued an innocent dying man with no motive but to gratify your own sick desire for self-glorification and the morbidly self-deluding hope of undeserved financial gain. It doesn’t get much lower than that. If your tinhorn piety is anything more than a shallow pretence to suck up to the gullible old ladies in your church, you’d better start praying that you are wrong. For you have no hope of redemption. Don’t count on a deathbed repentance, because repentance requires sincerity to be effective, and sincerity is one thing you can’t get away with faking.

Eternity is a rather long time to spend with a red-hot poker up your arse.

On a more practical note, don’t forget to bring your toothbrush to court today. Sometimes things move rather quickly.

Tuesday 15 April 2008

What happened to the fireworks, How-Old?

Back on 11 January 2008, the Vadney announced yet again that
A trial date has been set for April 14, 2008, in the matter of Harold W. Vadney v. Joan Ross, John Luckacovic, Richard Bleezarde and Bleezarde Publishing (New York State Supreme Court, Greene County, Index No. 07-0233).


I am not sure why the Vadney found it necessary to announce this date so many times, but, after the usual drivel about the action and yet another reference to Joan Ross’s “taking the Fifth” (more on which below), he invites us to
Stay tuned for the fireworks!


Well that, combined with the Vadney’s repeated references to the case in his blogs and elsewhere (including irrelevant abusive diatribes about it now mercifully deleted from the Chartered Institute of Linguists’ discussion fora), not to mention his repeated promise to publish the defendants’ depositions (which would have got him into deep shit for contempt of court), sounds like a promise to keep us posted on developments. But some pretty major developments have taken place without a word from the Vadney!

One development that he seems to have forgotten to mention, although it happened over a week ago, was that three of the four defendants, Joan Ross, Richard Bleezarde and the Bleezarde Publishing company, got summary judgment against the Vadney. In short, he has already lost his case against these three defendants. Not surprising, since it was purely vexatious and frivolous.

Now what’s that about the Fifth Amendment, How-Old? For the benefit of readers, I would point out that How-Old, on his account, threatened to prosecute the defendant for an alleged “conspiracy”, and then asked questions that were irrelevant to the matter at hand but clearly intended to gather evidence for his equally frivolous planned prosecution. It is perfectly reasonable to refuse to answer questions in such instances, and in no way constitutes an admission of guilt. (Guilt of what? one might ask. A conspiracy has to be a conspiracy to do something, and that something has to be illegal....) I can’t help wondering how many times How-Old will have taken the Fifth Amendment by the time these proceedings are over. I am tipping that, if he doesn’t avail himself of its protection, he will soon be invited to spend some time as a guest of his State Governor.

He would be very well-advised to start availing himself of it early, as follows:

Court Usher: Do you solemnly and sincerely swear that the evidence you shall give will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Vadney: I wefuse to answer that question on the gwounds that my answer may tend to incwiminate me.
Court Usher: State your full name, address and occupation.
Vadney: I wefuse to answer that question on the gwounds that my answer may tend to incwiminate me.

[...]

Defence counsel: Mr Vadney, do you run a translation business under the name of Albany TransComm International?
Vadney: I wefuse to answer that question on the gwounds that my answer may tend to incwiminate me.

[...]

Defence counsel: Mr Vadney, why exactly did you bring this suit against my client?
Vadney: I wefuse to answer that question on the gwounds that my answer may tend to incwiminate me.

[...]



There have been some other, even more bizarre, developments in this case. As we know, the Vadney was threatening to subpœna Mr Scott Horne, of Montréal, to have his deposition taken in Montréal for use in the present proceedings (as recently is 1 March 2008, he had a blog entry entitled “Shield Law No Protection / Montréal Agrees to Depose”). Well, of course, this never happened, but the ever-resourceful How-Old III has apparently subpœna’d one of the former defendants (Joan Ross), her partner (whom he recently abused as the hunched, paroxysmal, lurching "Robbie"), the town dog-catcher (!) and a certain Justice Farrell.

The stupidity of this move beggars belief. If you subpœna someone, they are your witness, and you are prevented from asking leading questions, but the other side is allowed to lead as much as it likes. So why would you subpœna someone whose evidence is likely to be hostile?

Justice Farrell is the judge against whom Vadney ran for office late last year, scoring a massive 17 votes against Farrell’s 688. Earlier, after the judge had dismissed a complaint about the Vadney and his partner’s barking dog (the plaintiff having withdrawn his suit), the Vadney lodged a totally frivolous and typically stupid 58-page complaint against the judge. The plaintiff in this dog suit was, if I am understanding this correctly, none other than John Luckacovic (New Baltimore, New York, is a very small town...), the sole remaining defendant in the present suit, which, again if I am understanding things correctly, relates to an advertisement, published in Mr Bleezarde’s newspaper, entitled “Judge with a Grudge?”, about the Vadney’s equally ill-fated earlier (2005) campaign to get himself elected Town Justice to sit alongside Justice Farrell, and making reference to the dog case and the Vadney’s subsequent complaint against the judge.

For those curious about the content of the advertisement the Vadney has complained so bitterly of, he has been kind enough to post it on his own webspace. Now tell me, if it really were so damaging to his reputation, why would he be disseminating it further? (It’s been there a couple of years at least!)

Saturday 5 April 2008

Livers white as milk...assume but valour’s excrement

Shakespeare lovers will recognize the above quotation, from Merchant of Venice, III, 2. Here is some more of it:

There is no vice so simple but assumes
Some mark of virtue on his outward parts:
How many cowards, whose hearts are all as false
As stairs of sand, wear yet upon their chins
The beards of Hercules and frowning Mars;
Who, inward search'd, have livers white as milk;
And these assume but valour's excrement
To render them redoubted! [...]


Now, of course, the excrement here is literally “outgrowth” in the form of a beard, but we all know that our subject, Mr Vadney, is full of a rather different kind of excrement: the bovine kind!

We have already seen how he describes himself as “valiant”, “courageous”, a “real champion”. Yeah, yeah.

And he accuses Scott Horne and me of “alleg[ing] one can enlist in the military for a particular posting”. Really? Where did either of us say that? Of course, in theory, once enlisted one can be posted anywhere at the discretion of the service involved. You might not be able to decide where you get posted, but, at least as a volunteer, you can decide on the timing of your enlistment. In particular, if there is a war on, you can wait a few years until your government starts pulling out. And that is what brave little How-Old did.

Twenty-two is a pretty ripe old age to be joining the army as an enlisted man. What was brave little How-Old doing that stopped him from rushing to his country’s defence in its hour of need? Attending college? Well, yes, sort of.... Apparently he had accumulated all of 15 semester hours at Union College, Schenectady, by the time he enlisted. Any serious and non-retarded college student would have got a bachelor’s degree by the age of 22. Do I smell an ill-fated attempt to gain a student deferment? Whatever the reason for this unsuccessful stint as a student, young How-Old wisely refrained from joining up until the process of “Vietnamization” (begun over three years earlier in 1969) was almost complete, enlisting a couple of weeks before Nixon announced the suspension of all offensive activity (although I was pretty offended by Watergate), and less than a month before the signing of the Paris peace accord.

So rather than a sign of the “champion’s” heroism, this looks like a carefully calculated attempt (probably using all ten fingers and a few toes too) to avoid any actual combat duty. But of course, nothing stops the milk-white-livered coward from assuming valour’s (bovine) excrement!

Nowadays Mr Vadney has more sedate ways of displaying his valour, or at least his excrement. Like attacking old people for...their age. He’s edited it out now, but there are still copies around of the blog entry where he referred to the artists Frank and Trudy Little as “Methuselah’s parents”. Like victimizing innocent people and turning their daily existence into a nightmare with frivolous and totally meritless, but time-consuming and expensive, court cases. Like ridiculing people for their disabilities. We have a reference to the “partner” of one of the hapless defendants in one of the Vadney’s court cases as “the hunched, paroxysmal, lurching ‘Robbie’”. Even I get a serve for mentioning my minor and well-compensated dyslexia, but of course there is no explanation for the Vadney’s own inability to spell or even read. Who could forget the “Kabal of Sleeze”?

And again, one wonders why anyone would still be bragging about such an inglorious military career over 30 years after its abrupt and humiliating end (perhaps Mr Vadney would care to inform us just why he was let go so suddenly?). Maybe because he has accomplished nothing since?

About Me

I am a professional translator in the combinations French>English and German>English. I hold qualifications from the University of Adelaide (BA, DipCompSc), the Australian National University (LittB), the University of Geneva (Certificat de spécialisation en linguistique), and the the UK-based Institute of Linguists (Diploma in Translation for both my language combinations). I am an implacable opponent of bullshit in all its forms.