Strewing manure?

As mentioned in my ballad, Vadney is full of shit. Not only is it amazing how much of it he can stuff into that grotesquely stunted little body of his, but also just how much bullshit he manages to compress into a few lines of clumsily-written prose:

That's one of the reasons why we [sic!] have stopped responding to the manure still being strewn by Troll Benham and Sockpuppet Horne. They're evil and envious and have nothing to do. Period.

Strewing manure? That’s a fine charge to be throwing at me and my colleague! Sources close to the New York State Police inform me that Vadney was reprimanded on 6 May after carefully placing two sandwich-bags full of doggy-do (well, I hope it was doggy-do) on the street in front of the house of one of the defendants to his famous and ill-fated lawsuit.

Who’s evil? Who’s envious? Who’s got nothing to do?

I don’t claim to be perfect, but I have never pursued an innocent and seriously ill man to his grave with a frivolous lawsuit.

And I should envy a man who claims to be a professional translator but only gets work once every blue moon? Who tried for five years to get a regular job without success? Who claims to be a language professional but consistently misspells simple words? I should envy a no-hoper whose main chance of making something of himself is to sue innocent people for millions of dollars for telling the truth about him? Who just lost a fifty-million-dollar lawsuit? Who is so insecure he makes fun of other people’s minor disabilities, even though he can’t pronounce the letter r? Who has such an inferiority complex about his lack of education and his trailer-trash origins he poses for a portrait in a labcoat marked “Dr. H. W. Vadney”? Who feels so inadequate about his aging appearance he has to dye his hair? Who stands for election to a $10,000 job and gets 2.4 percent of the vote?

And of course, Vadney has plenty to do. Like depositing bags of dogshit on the street. Like concocting stupid lawsuits about bloody nothing. Like calling witnesses and boring everybody’s tits off for 3.5 days but not even calling himself or anyone else who might actually support his case. Like bragging about his assets in Europe and then claiming to be too poor to pay the costs of his hopeless appeal. Or bragging about how he “knows the law” and then whingeing about how he didn’t get a fair trial because the judge didn’t help him. Like running infantile hate campaigns in an effort to trash the reputations of serious professionals. (Don’t be misled: Vadney is neither serious nor a professional anything, except perhaps a professional litigant and a professional pain in the butt.) Like campaigning in elections he’d have no hope of winning even if people did believe his lies. Like fabricating credentials and forging documents....

Does the word “projection” ring a bell, anyone?

Vadney’s Notice of Appeal

All this reminds me. Vadney’s notice of appeal has been obtained from the Greene County Clerk’s Office. It is entertaining reading. Here are some highlights (numbering omitted):

• I believe I may have overestimated my understanding of the language of the court and of procedure at trial and that the court should have recognized that I may have made a procedural error but the court did not assure itself that I understood that I had a right to take the stand or not take the stand at a specific point before the court requested motions.


• I believe the court erred in that it failed to explicitly tell me that I had the opportunity and right to take the stand to testify on the facts to the jury.


• I believe the court erred in not explicitly asking me if I wished to testify before the court took motions.


• I believe the court erred and abused its discretion when, upon hearing my answer to the defendant’s motion to dismiss, refused to allow me to take the stand despite my vigorous requests to testify.


• I believe the court erred and abused its discretion in not allowing me to testify despite my express requests to do so.


• I believe the court erred and abused its discretion in that the court’s refusal to take notice of my request to treat previous defendants in the case before it and who were subpoenaed by me to testify and appear, as hostile witnesses.


• I believe that the court failed to exercise control of witnesses by allowing them to ramble and to refuse to answer for the most specious presumptions or to refuse to identify an exhibit or to criticize a true and correct exhibit for idiotic reasons.


• I cannot afford an attorney to represent me and must proceed pro se.


• I do not have the resources to cover the costs of this appeal or of another trial.


• I wish to proceed to appeal and retrial as a poor person.

Note the idiosyncratic syntax of some of the items. Note too that he complains repeatedly that the judge didn’t explain procedure to him, despite his persistent bragging about his legal knowledge and having run for election as a judge himself on two occasions....

I hope to post a scanned copy of the whole document, along with the judge’s findings and maybe even the hour-long diatribe in response to counsel for the defendant’s motion for dismissal, in which Vadney is alleged to have so expressly and vigorously requested to be allowed to testify, despite having already closed his case.

Is Vadney Appealing?

NO!!

Well, of course he isn’t appealing in that sense, but I was speculating as to whether he might be appealing against the recent court decision throwing out his stupid, unmeritorious and unrealistic defamation suit.

What would his grounds be? That he wasn’t able to present his case properly because he didn’t understand the law? This from a would-be Town Justice? Or maybe he didn’t get a chance to put his case? Well, he raved on for three-and-a-half-days, didn’t he?

And what about money? Appeals can be expensive...maybe around $US20K. Surely he won’t cry poor and ask for the fees to be waived?

Run that past me again, Werner?

I am not sure how relations are between Werner Patels and the Vadney lately.

The former’s recent comment on the latter’s blog is open to interpretation:

Interesting developments, after months of not checking in on this story.

Even after years of residing in the blogosphere, so to speak, I am still amazed by the extent to which certain things are escalated -- and transferred into the real world (e.g., by way of lawsuits and/or criminal action).

For Scott Horne to face the possibility of being arrested on what appears to be his native soil, this is probably the worst outcome I have seen in an Internet/blogosphere-related case in a long time, or ever.

It has also confirmed another of my suspicions: translators, most of whom are introverts and loners by definition, should not really socialize -- especially not on message boards and such -- because my own personal experience has shown that our profession is so filled with contempt for and/or envy of others in this line of work that such personal confrontations are just bound to happen.

This is why my wife and I pulled out of Proz, TranslatorsCafe, etc., because the experience was sickening for both of us.

I still remember my wife saying to me one day a few years ago, "You know what? Let's not bother with those sites anymore. All we ever get from being associated with them is grief and insult. Do we really need this?"

I thought about it for a few seconds and concluded, "No, we don't. Life is too precious and too short."

10:53:00 PM

And here is the Vadney’s unctuous reply:

Werner Patels appears to hit the nail on the head in his recently posted comment.

Vadney seems to have got things arse about: when Werner says “For Scott Horne to face the possibility of being arrested...is possibly the worst outcome”, I assume he means that it’s a bad thing. As the Vadney was the one promoting this possibility, Werner’s comment can hardly be construed as a statement in support of Vadney.

What worries me, however, is that the Vadney seems to have convinced Werner that there was a real possibility of Scott Horne’s being arrested. For what? The Vadney lives in a fantasy world in which (a) there is some (so far unspecified) criminal conspiracy against him involving myself, Scott Horne, most of his neighbourhood, two newspapers,..., and (b) people in authority give a rat’s arse about his conspiracy fantasies. It is probably possible to get anyone you like arrested by concocting a sufficiently plausible story, but the Vadney’s grasp on reality (in particular his grasp on other people’s grasp on reality) is so tenuous that the stories he devises (and may even believe) are somewhat less plausible than the Brothers Grimm.

New blog alert!

The Vadney, ungrateful little puppy that he is, has recently, with his antics, inspired a creative outpouring of poetry in some quarters. So I have set up a new blog devoted to Vadney-related poetry.

I have already posted a newly-composed ballad, with no fewer than 27 stanzas, some of which are mildly amusing....

See you there!

Judge with a Grudge?

Here is the text of the article which was the subject of Mr Vadney's lawsuit against one of his neighbours. His case against the other three defendants was dismissed before going to trial. In the remaining case, the judge held that Mr Vadney had only succeeded in proving the truth of the allegedly defamatory article.

Judge With A Grudge?

NEW BALTIMORE – You wouldn’t just accept the word of a used car salesman, would you?

Well, that’s exactly what Harold W. Vadney, write-in candidate for New Baltimore Town Justice, is asking you to do. His posters around town claim he is “Ethical, Professional, Fair and Independent”. His mailings and recent articles in the local press make him seem like he’s all that and more, so we asked around to see what kind of a judge he would really be.

We have been unable to find any endorsement whatsoever, unlike his opponents. In fact, it was hard to even find any supportive voters. Driving around, the only political signs we could find for him were on public property, unlike his opponents whose support is seen peppering private property all over town.

So, rather than relying on his sales pitch, we dug a little into his background and managed to engage a few individuals who actually know him. A different picture emerged. In fact, we discovered a man who seems to have the reputation of discrediting and ridiculing anyone who disagrees with his form of ‘justice’.

A simple web search uncovers a detailed, documented history of fellow business associates accusing him of displaying a violent temper and verbal abuse. Although these are personal opinions, one reads numerous allegations about his poor business practices and writers express shock and are aghast at what they claim is his extreme behavior. In just one example, Scott Horne, a business colleague, contends in a web forum, “Mr. Vadney does indeed have a fine reputation for withholding payment...threatening people who make public the truth about his failure to pay...and assaulting people with profanity.”

“I have absolutely no contact with him”, says John Luckacovic, a long-time hamlet homeowner and neighbor of Mr. Vadney, “and yet he has held a grudge against me ever since I dropped my complaint about the barking dogs kept in the house he shares with his partner. It makes no sense.”

“Things got better with the dogs, so I withdrew the complaint and the judge dismissed the case,” he continues, “but Mr. Vadney refused to be dismissed, and for more than a year, he has trumped up fictional complaints about me and my wife, sent the state troopers to our house numerous times, written hateful letters to the editor about me and even created a website specifically dedicated to discrediting the judge who dismissed the case.

According to Mr. Vadney’s website (http://vadney4justice.home.att.net), the dismissal of the case to which Mr. Luckacovic refers so infuriated Mr. Vadney that he wrote a 50 page (yes, 50 pages!) complaint to the New York State Commission on Judicial Conduct in an attempt to throw the Hon. Joseph Farrell off the NB bench. Twice, the Commission rejected his complaint.

Neighbors who know Mr. Vadney say his intense finger wagging is common knowledge to everyone around him. They contend it includes numerous petty, unsubstantiated accusations and a relentless harassment of his neighbors to obey laws of his own invention. By his own admission on his website, he places lengthy letters and calls to news media and various elected and unelected town leaders and politicians including the Greene County Sheriff’s office, the local NYS Trooper barracks, even Governor George Pataki, Senator Hillary Clinton and Senator Charles E. Schumer, to name but a few! Anyone with a few hours to spare (it took us more than three) can navigate around his website to learn more about this candidate’s views.

As soon as his website appears, Mr. Vadney sports an official campaign photo showing him in front of a 13 star Colonial American flag. One wonders if this symbolizes the 18th century justice Mr. Vadney would like to see for New Baltimore: one of witch hunts, stockades and public flogging.

Paid for by Voters4Justice

So there you have it: the allegedly “defamatory” article, found to have been proved true by the legal efforts of none other than the Vadney himself.

By the way, access to most of Vadney's web pages is blocked (whether at his instance or by the host on the basis of the content is not clear), but he was kind enough to post a scanned version of the article, which I downloaded and posted here.

Shock! Horror! Vadney tells the truth!

Well, it had to happen one day, I suppose. Harold William Vadney III has been caught actually telling the truth!

I have got hold of an archive copy of his CV (entitled “About Me”) from the 2005 election campaign, and it contains a classic example of unintentional truth-telling.

First, let me set the scene. We all know that Vadney's only genuine tertiary qualification, among all those he's claimed over the years, and despite his alleged decade or more of study at any number of high-profile universities, is a BA in German. However, we are also aware that he further claims, in many places, to have been “Director of Clinical Research” at Cathedral Health Systems. (I note in passing that Vadney took two unsuccessful lawsuits against this company!) So how does a language graduate get to be a “Director of Clinical Research”? Easy!

The answer is supplied by the Vadney himself:

I later moved to East Windsor (near Princeton) and from there forged my way into the pharmaceutical industries, and later into public health (HIV, TB and STDs), and finally into clinical research and epidemiology, finally occupying a position as Director, Clinical Research and Epidemiology with a major hospital corporation in Newark, New Jersey.

—<http://vadney4justice.home.att.net/AboutMe>
Downloaded 2/3/06 10:04 AM
(emphasis added)

Forged his way, indeed!

...which makes me wonder...

Might there have been some (unintentional) truth in some of the statements in Vadney’s blog? Well, his use of the word produced is sometimes open to interpretation:

5. Harold Vadney subsequently produced his Institute of Linguists diploma--disproving Benham's and Horne's claims--and forwarded a copy to the now Chartered Institute of Linguists' officer corresponding with Benham and Horne but who inexplicably (or explicably) disappeared or is no longer with the Institute'' and the Institute has been reticent on the subject ever since;


6. Harold Vadney produced his RSA certificate of election to fellowship--again disproving Benham's and Horne's claims;

—Blog entry, 23 April, 2008
(emphasis added)

We'll ignore all the usual lies for the moment. The question is: What can Vadney mean by “produced” here? The word is sometimes used in the sense of laying something before someone, as evidence, say. But who has seen these alleged documents? He can't mean he produced them to the IoL, because he mentions forwarding a copy of his diploma to them, as a separate event. I can conclude he is using the word produced in its more everyday sense. “Produced” them with PhotoShop, did we, How-Old?

How not to win a court case...

Now Vadney has been a little coy about the outcome of his famous court case, in which he sued Joan Ross, John Luckacovic, the late Richard Bleezarde and Bleezarde's publishing company for alleged “defamation”. So it was left to me to announce the pleasing if predictable news: he was found to have no case against any of the defendants. Mr Vadney’s handling of the case did not help his cause. In particular, he called witnesses whose testimony could only harm his cause, including the one remaining defendant (the case against the others having been dismissed before the thing came to trial). This is what the judge had to say about Vadney’s attempts to prove the falsity of Mr Luckacovic’s assertions:

The fourth element is that the Plaintiff must prove by clear and convincing evidence that the statement was false, meaning substantially untrue. There has been considerable testimony about the contents of this statement, paragraph by paragraph, in some instances line by line, and in some instances inexhaustible questioning concerning specific words and/or phrases. There's been a total lack of proof or evidence that the statement, that this article, Exhibits 6 and 7, Judge with a Grudge, is false. On the contrary, the extensive examination of the witnesses in this case, particularly the Defendant, have [sic] only established and cemented the fact that the statements are in fact true, although the Defendant has no burden at this stage. So I'm finding that as a matter of law Plaintiff has failed to prove by clear and convincing evidence that the statement was false, that is substantially untrue.

The simple translation of that is that, despite his three-and-a-half days of theatrical posturing and calling huge numbers of witnesses, all Vadney managed to prove was that the “defamatory” allegations against him were in fact true (which we all knew anyway).

By the way, the judge also found (still in relation to Mr Luckacovic's Judge with a Grudge? article) that Vadney had failed to show that it was defamatory, failed to show that Mr Luckacovic had known it to be false (pretty hard when it's true, but judges have to be thorough) or acted in reckless disregard of its truth or falsity, and failed to show that it had been a substatial factor in causing economic loss (to the respective burden of proof in each case). Put simply, the case never had any merit and Vadney knew it.

What's a few oak leaves here or there?

Another interesting claim in the Vadney autobiography that has recently come to light concerns his military decorations. Consider the following:

While with the 1^st IDF, I earned a number of commendations from the German military and civilian community and service medals, including the Army Commendation Medal with oak-leaf cluster.

—<http://vadney4justice.home.att.net/AboutMe>
Downloaded 2/3/06 10:04 AM
(emphasis added)

But hang on! What happened to this oak-leaf cluster? It's not mentioned in the copy of Vadney's military record sent to Mr Scott Horne. It has strangely disappeared from Vadney's more recent CVs. (For those not familiar, the oak-leaf cluster is equivalent to being issued the same medal a second (or subsequent) time.) Is this the medal which, according to Scott Waldman's article in the Times Union, was revoked? Why did it take Vadney so long to get confirmation of his medals, when it took so little time for Waldman and Horne to get their copies of Vadney's record? Did Vadney engage in some kind of threats and posturing to get the Army to remove all reference to his revoked oak-leaf cluster? And why did Vadney get demoted and leave the Army in such a hurry?

Of course, Vadney himself could answer these questions, but don't hold your breath: he is probably exhausted already from revealing so many truths in one life-time.

Reality check, Mr Vadney!

Well, the Vadney has finally got around to responding to my reports on his defamation trial. It took several weeks, and, as usual, he offers nothing concrete.

In fact, the only comment he has made so far about the trial has been that he someone called Terry there who was pretending to be a trainee court reporter, but that he wasn't sucked in. Well, if he wanted anyone to believe that, he shouldn't have left it so long. Obviously, he was totally fooled at the time, and only recognized her picture later.¹

Somehow, the Vadney seems to have forgotten to mention that he totally lost his suit: the court found that, despite his several days of drivel, he had failed to make a case against the remaining defendant, Mr Luckacovic. The so-called case against the other three defendants, Ms Ross, Mr Bleezarde and Mr Bleezarde's publishing company, didn't even make it to trial, summary judgment having been made in favour of the defendants because of the obvious lack of merit of the Vadney's suit.

As the Vadney's “defamation” suit was dismissed, he has no business referring, as he does (see his blog entry for 23/04/2008), to “the 2005 defamations”. He lost the suit; so there was no defamation. Referring to “defamation” in relation to the facts on which that suit relied is therefore itself defamatory, and quite possibly in contempt of court.

Then we have the following classic:

John Luckacovic's attorney was served with notice that if Horne appeared anywhere in the vicinity or on US soil law enforcement authorities would be requested to immediately arrest him and anyone aiding or abetting his escape would be made accountable for obstruction of justice and aiding and abetting a suspect of criminal conduct.

Yes, How-Old, maybe you really do think that the law enforcement services are going to comb the countryside in the hope of arresting someone “suspect[ed by you] of [unspecified] criminal conduct”, on your say-so. But if you have such delusions of grandeur, you would do better to hide them: with a bit of luck, there might be some people left who are unaware of your mental condition.

A few more home truths for the Vadney

• Your fraudulent claims to be a Fellow of the RSA and a Member of the IoL, and to hold MA and PhD degrees, as well as your laughable attempts to pass yourself off as a physician, are recorded for posterity all over cyberspace: you have (reluctantly) removed them from your CV and web pages, but you can't cover up your dishonesty.
  
  
• Neither the Swiss nor the French police force is looking for me. Nobody gives a rat's arse about you and your ratbag allegations.
  
  
• I am not wanted in Indonesia, and have not committed any serious crime there. Writing the truth about a lowlife like you in another country never was a crime there (and just why did you take such pains to say that truth was not a defence against criminal libel charges in Indonesia, I wonder?). There was a criminal libel law, but it quite explicitly confined its protection to the president and the government, and was unsurprisingly struck down by the constitutional court a month before you started threatening me with it.
  
  
• Nor for that matter are the Mounties or the US Border Patrol, the FBI, the CIA, Rocky and Bullwinkle, Space Patrol, U.N.C.L.E. (remember that show, anyone?) or any other law enforcement agency looking for my colleague Mr Horne. Such organizations are used to receiving bizarre reports from even more bizarre people, and have a special, cylindrical filing system for them (in IT terms, a write-only memory).
  
  
• There is no such tort as conspiracy. Even if there were, it wouldn't help you. Hasn't it sunk in yet that people work against you because you are a contemptible piece of shit and you bring it on yourself, not because of some imaginary “conspiracy”?
  
  
  

Shocking discovery!

And now for the really shocking news: one of my correspondents claims to have uncovered evidence that the Vadney once actually told the truth! This is so implausible that I'm not posting it until I can confirm the details independently.

FOOTNOTE

¹ It was a couple of years ago that I first saw that picture of a rather overweight woman in a shower cubicle, so tastefully used in the Vadney's posting of 17/05/2008, while Googling for a German expression. It appeared in a site called www.uglypeople.com. I'd like to know whether Vadney got permsission from uglypeople.com, and whether he gave something back by submitting his own portrait.