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.

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.

The Pink Parasite, or Would you buy this used man?

We all know about projection. Vadney lied about his credentials, which makes him a fraud; so he calls me a fraud. He accuses me of defaming him, when my accusations were true; so again the boot is on the other foot. Similarly he accuses me of criminality, stupidity, impotence, ugliness...even of being a parasite, which is a bit rich considering his own circumstances. Recently, he has accused me (and Scott Horne) of being suicidal; so I draw my own conclusion.

So why is Vadney contemplating suicide? Well, I know it’s hard, but let’s try to imagine ourselves in his position. This is my (imaginative) take on it:

Would you buy this used man?

You are 57 years old. You have been trying to make a career as a freelance translator for over 25 years now, and still you can’t make a go of it. Your business is derisory. Others, in far less time, have built up successful careers, but you can’t do it. You are coming to realize that you are too old to start again. Until a few months ago, you had a job-search website up, but after over five years, it became just too humiliating, and you had to take it down. Now your opponents, who have access to archived copies, are making fun of you over it.

Your lover, Edward, is 14 years your junior. When you met him, you were broke. When he gets sick of supporting you and kicks you out, you will be broke again. Naked came I, as the Good Book says. For a while it was rather neat that a younger, wealthier man supported you. In a way it proved you were desirable—to someone at least. But now you worry about being old and ugly. You know that dyeing your hair a lurid shade of orange can only cover for so much. You know that your days of living in comfort as his parasite are numbered.

You know, too, that, when the time comes, and your toyboy has had enough of you, you will be very hard-pressed to find a replacement. As you so aptly put it, “Middle-aged men with low self-esteem and zero self-respect are not exactly A-list company.” You really don’t like yourself. If you were happy with what you are, you wouldn’t dress up in a lab-coat with “Dr H. W. Vadney” printed on it. Not for a portrait; not even to do the gardening. It might not have made you a better person, but it fooled some people and gave you an illusory feeling of respect—not self-respect, maybe, but respect from others. Now that you have been exposed for what you are—a fraud—you must know that people laugh at you behind your back about that famous lab-coat.

In fact, there is nobody you encounter, either in your so-called professional life or in your neighbourhood, who you can’t be sure isn’t secretly laughing at you. You have been caught lying about your credentials, and it has been in the press, and it has been mentioned on professional websites. You have nowhere to hide.

Reality is closing in on you. For years—decades—people believed you were a doctor or a clinical scientist, or they politely pretended to. But now the secret is out: you have only a lousy BA, and you made a mess of your MA. You had so much trouble coping with that failure that, even nearly 30 years later, you were still pretending to have passed your MA. Until you were exposed as a liar. The whole house of cards has come crashing down around you.

You continually lose court cases; you must realize that you can be stung for costs, and then your only way out—apart from suicide—will be to go bankrupt or to go cap in hand to your young lover, who sooner or later must tire of your demands for money. You can’t accept that the fantasy persona you created for yourself is a lie; so you relentlessly harass and pursue anyone who challenges or threatens it. But somehow you know too that you have been caught out: the game is up, and you will never again be taken seriously. Your claims to be a doctor and a clinical scientist, instead of winning you respect, have made you ridiculous, despised, a laughing-stock. It is too late to recover your self-esteem and relaunch yourself: you are too old and you have no independent means. You can’t even earn a living.

You know too that some of the things you have been exposed for are serious crimes: fraud, perjury.... Even your current obsessive hate-blogging could get you prosecuted for harassment, but you just can’t stop. You could land in prison. With your fake upper-class mannerisms, your puffery and your holier-than-thou attitude, you will be despised and detested, both by the other criminals and by the prison guards. Your two absurd and pathetic attempts to become a judge will not sit well in your new environment either. Your life in prison will be hell.

You? A judge? Some hope! With 17 votes, it looks like not even all your family voted for you. You should be grateful: a judge in prison would have an even worse time of it than you’ve booked yourself in for.

You skulk around the house in your dressing gown, behind closed shutters and boarded-up windows, peering out at the world, at the people who, unlike you, have a life, wondering whether they are talking or thinking about you. Pathetic. You Google your own name obsessively to find out what people think of you. You have next to no work; you are afraid to show your face for fear of ridicule, or just for fear that people will realize you have nothing better to do than wander around. Your future as a homeless and despised old jailbird (if you survive to be let out), unattractive, unloved, unwanted, living on the street, is too horrible to contemplate. How sad.

No wonder you want to kill yourself.

But don’t worry: he won’t do it. He hasn’t got the guts.

PS: If anyone is wondering what happened to the entry on the distinction between onanism and masturbation, two topics dear to Mr Vadney’s heart (see his blog entries from December 2007 for multiple references thereto), stop worrying! I posted it to this blog by mistake: it was intended for the companion blog, Biblical quotations for the Vadney, and that’s where you’ll find it now. Although that blog is primarily intended for his spiritual guidance, that particular entry is more for his general education, which is sadly lacking. However, I included it there because it rests on a Biblical quotation which is commonly misunderstood.

PPS: I’m still in Annemasse. My precise geographical coördinates, to two decimal places, are on my ProZ.com profile. I can’t be bothered copying them here.

“Our beautiful property”...? Our?

Mr Vadney is not shy of chopping and changing his Blogger profile. An earlier version contained the sentence: “One of my hobbies is landscaping our beautiful property and stocking my garden pond.”

I am not sure which property the Vadney means by “our beautiful property”; he variously gives his street address as 18 New Street, New Baltimore, NY 12124 and 10 New Street, New Baltimore, NY 12124. The other obvious question is why “our”? Is there a Mrs Vadney, for example? And does the Vadney’s near-constant use of what appears to be the “royal plural” actually a sign that he is acting in concert with a partner?

Anyway, I have now completed my property search of the two properties in question, and I find that they are adjacent properties, with tax-map IDs of 7.16-2-2 (number 18) and 7.16-2-4 (number 10), both of them owned by one Edward Hayes III. Now, I have not been under any illusions about Mr Vadney’s sexuality since he started throwing homophobic innuendos and insults at me (read some of his early blog entries, with reference to mutual masturbation, etc....). So I assume that Mr Hayes III is “Mrs Vadney”. So why is “our” property in Hayes III’s name only? Is it so that Vadney III, well-known for his vexatious and frivolous litigation, makes a small target when it comes to execution of orders for costs? Is it because Vadney III was penniless when he met Hayes III and continues to earn next to nothing?

It appears that no 10 New Street is uninhabitable, but Mr Vadney III uses it as an address for service. That’s a pretty cheap way to avoid your responsibilities, isn’t it?

There is some suggestion that Hayes III and Vadney III may even be related, if only by adoption. Consider this obituary, from the Daily Times, 19 March 2003, of his grandmother, Marguerite Cioffi:

She is survived by her loving daughter, Mrs. Harold (Anita) Vadney of West Coxsackie; her devoted grandchildren, Harold W. Vadney III of New Baltimore, Ann Marie Vadney of Albeny, John Vadney and his wife Dawn of Selkirk, Joseph Vadney of Hannacroix, Paula Jean Vadney of Schodack, Mary Vadney, wife of the late Richard Vadney of West Coxsackie, and her adoptive grandson Edward J. Hayes III of New Baltimore.

Looks like Harold III and Edward III are adoptive cousins. Or does it? Mrs Cioffi is only listed as having one child, Anita. There is a list of relatives who predeceased her, and none of them is a child. You cannot adopt someone as a grand-child, and it seems Mrs Cioffi had no adopted children. So it seems that there is only one way Mr Hayes III could be Mrs Cioffi’s “adopted grandson”: by being adopted by Vadney III’s mother Anita Vadney. That makes the Messrs III adoptive brothers. That’s what I call keeping it in the family!

A more sober possibility is that passing Mr Hayes III off as Mrs Cioffi’s adoptive grandson was just a cowardly way of including him as a member of her extended family without revealing the exact nature of the relationship with young Harold III.

Of course, if Mr Edward J. Hayes III really is involved in the production of the Vadney’s blog, that means that the two of them are in a conspiracy. I wonder how he feels about being dragged into this sordid affair by his partner. I wonder how he will feel if he gets prosecuted because of it. I wonder how he will feel about references to this blog showing up in search engine searches for his name....

An apology? That’s a start....

I note that Mr Vadney has made an apology to his readers (both of us) for his recent somewhat unseemly outbursts. At least that is a step in the right direction. However, now that Mr Vadney has calmed down a little, I would ask him to consider, calmly, the following.

• Mr Vadney makes the following statement:
  

  I am a very kind and considerate person but when faced with unashamed stupidity and recalcitrant arrogance [I only said he’d calmed down a little!] even when the malfeasors are confronted with proof of error or falsity it becomes annoying and frustrating.

  
  I assume I am supposed to be one of those unashamedly stupid and recalcitrantly arrogant “malfeasors”.
  
  
• Let’s have a look at Mr Vadney’s “proof”. As far as I can see, this “proof” consists of his unsupported assertion of the existence of several documents:
  
  
  
  1. A certificate from the IoL, dating from 1981, to the effect that Mr Vadney was elected a Member, or Associate Member, of the IoL;
     
     
  2. A certificate from the RSA, dating from 1979, to the effect that Mr Vadney was elected a Fellow of the RSA;
     
     
  3. A letter from the Department of the Army confirming Mr Vadney’s medals.
     
  
  
• Let’s assume, for the moment, that all these documents exist and are genuine. Now let’s consider their relevance:
  
  
  
  1. The certificate from the IoL may or may not confirm that Mr Vadney was entitled to use the abbreviation “MIL” in 1981 and into 1982. If it mentions the word “Associate”, however, as it does in the account Mr Vadney gave of it in the IoL forum, it only entitled him to the designation “AIL”. In either case, of his own admission, Mr Vadney allowed his (full or associate) membership to lapse, and was not entitled to either designation in 2007, when he claimed to be a Member on his campaign website, as well as his TranslatorsCafe.com and ProZ.com profiles. So I was right in my assertion that he had falsely claimed to be a Member of the IoL.
     
     
  2. Again, assuming Mr Vadney was elected a Fellow of the RSA in 1979, by his own admission, he did not maintain his membership, and so was not entitled to call himself a Fellow or use the designation FRSA. However, he did so on his campaign websites and on his ProZ.com and TranslatorsCafe.com profiles until August 2007, when I published my exposé. Again, I was right to do so.
     
     
  3. As for Mr Vadney’s Army decoration, he seems to be under a bit of a delusion. I did not mention this medal on the NIL forum in August 2007. The forum was closed down, thanks to Mr Vadney’s intervention, just as Scott Waldman’s article was about to be published. It was in this article that I first learned of the issue about the medal. Mr Waldman did not get the information from me; he claimed in the article to have a letter from the relevant authority to the effect that Mr Vadney’s medal had been revoked. I find it extraordinary to suppose that he would have fabricated this. If Mr Vadney has a beef with anyone, I would say it is with the record-keeping authority for giving Mr Waldman the false information, assuming that’s what happened. I certainly had no rôle in it.
     
  
  
• Mr Vadney has made allegations about the manner in which I obtained records of his degree status. I do not intend to enter into any discussion of that here. It is a red herring. The fact remains that Mr Vadney claimed to have an MA from SUNY at Albany, and he did not and does not. The CVs and other documents in which he made this claim have been archived by neutral third parties and can be produced in court. So too, his SUNY records can be obtained on subpoena. The question of how I came to know about Mr Vadney’s degree status is not relevant to the issue of defamation. Either he got his MA or he didn’t.
  
  
• Another red herring is the claim that my information about Mr Vadney’s degrees was “inaccurate”. The “inaccuracy” does not relate to the absence of an MA degree; it relates to the title of Mr Vadney’s bachelor’s degree: it was listed as BS rather than BA. So what? A BA degree is no more an MA than is a BS.
  

In view of all this, Mr Vadney must realize that he cannot possibly win a defamation suit against me. On the other hand, Mr Vadney has made numerous defamatory statements about me, attacking my honesty and my mental health, accusing me of lies, fraud and defamation, and questioning my academic credentials. None of these allegations is accompanied by any evidence, and none has any substance. So Mr Vadney might be well advised to publish a comprehensive apology and retraction, in order to reduce the head of damages against him should I decide to sue him for defamation.

He might also consider his position in relation to the defendants in his ill-considered court action. He has a lot more to apologize to them for than to me.

What next?

The Vadney is posting new messages to his scandalous blog at a fast and furious rate. I have better things to do than answer or even read all of them. A few comments will have to suffice:

• The Vadney seems to have trouble with simple things like reading and arithmetic. (His writing skills aren’t up to much, either!) For example, he mentions my retirement in the “early 80s”, and referred to the date as 1981 in a comment he attempted to post on this blog. Actually, as my CV shows, I retired in 1985. Similarly, he places my age in the “mid 50s”, despite my having given my birthdate as 28 May 1957, which makes me 50 at the time of writing.
  
  
• The gap in my CV, as one might suspect given the reason for my early retirement, was due to health problems. This is one disadvantage of being truthful; if I had the Vadney’s ethics, I could simply have put in other jobs, or backdated the beginning of my translation career.
  
  
• The Vadney, not for the first time, tries to cast doubt on my credentials. As far as I know, the University of Adelaide, the Australian National University and the Chartered Institute of Linguists all confirm their degrees and diplomas free of charge. So I would invite anyone who entertains the suspicion that the Vadney has a point to contact the institutions concerned. For reference, here are the degrees and diplomas I list on my CV:
  
  
  
  • University of Adelaide: Bachelor of Arts (1978), Diploma in Computing Science (1980). (750907E)
    
  • Australian National University: Bachelor of Letters (1984). (80M356)
    
  • Institute of Linguists: Diploma in Translation (French to English) (2003), Diploma in Translation (German to English) (2003).
    
  
  For ease of reference, I have put in my student numbers at the two universities concerned. Please feel free to use those numbers in making your enquiries. I will not threaten you with prosecution under imaginary laws (or even real ones).
  
  
• No number of years’ experience will make an incompetent person in any job into a competent person. A Vadney with 25 years’ experience is still a Vadney, and will still be vastly inferior to an average translator who qualified yesterday.
  
  
• The Vadney describes my academic career as “a bit difficult to swallow”. If you want to see a real example of an implausible “academic” career, check out this beauty from the Vadney’s ProZ.com CV, which I downloaded 2 August 2007 (the lies are too numerous to mention):
  

  Education
  

  
  State University of New York Albany, NY 1977 - 1979
  
  
  
  • B.A., Philology & Physiology
    
  • M.A., Philology & Psychology (Physiological)
    
  
  
  • Rutgers University Newark, NJ 1990 - 1991
    
    
    
    • Post-graduate Studies in Zoology
      
    
    
  • University of Medicine & Dentistry Newark, NJ 1990 - 1991
    
    
    
    • Post-graduate Studies in Pathology / Anatomy / Microbiology
      
    
    
  • City University of New York New York, NY 1986 - 1986
    
    
    
    • Doctoral Program, Biochemistry
      
    • Continuing Post-graduate Studies – Literary Theory & Criticism, Philology
      
    
    

  
  Continuing Education:
  

  
  
  • Harvard Medical School - Continuing Medical Education
    
  • Armed Forces Institute of Pathology
    
  • CDC Comprehensive and Updates - Tb/HIV/STDs
    
  • Johns Hopkins CME
    
  • UMDNJ CME
    
  • IKON Microsoft Systems Engineer & Software Applications
    
  • Novell System Administrator

  
  
• It is interesting to compare the above alleged educational career with the more compressed version from his campaign website:
  

  
  Universities: University of Maryland (liberal arts, psychology); State University of
  New York (philology, psychology); University College of London (London); Hunter
  College (molecular biology); City University of New York "CUNY" (biochemistry,
  philology); Rutgers University (biology, zoology, physiology); University of Medicine
  and Dentistry (pathology/anatomy and allied sciences). Continuing Education:
  Harvard School of Medicine (CME); Armed Forces Institute of Pathology (CME);
  CDC (certificate courses in STDs, TB and HIV); Microsoft Network Engineer and
  Novell Network Specialist training and MS Office Applications; applications training.
  New York State Unified Court System, Office of Court Administration, Judicial
  Campaign Ethics.
  

  
  Note that the list of institutions doesn’t match: University of Maryland, Hunter College and “University College of [sic!] London” (apparently he expects us to believe he attended a university whose name he can’t get right!) have been added. Also note the biggest joke of all: “New York State Unified Court System, Office of Court Administration, Judicial
  Campaign Ethics”! Apparently they forgot to teach him that lying about your credentials was not allowed.
  
  
• On reading the cute little aside “(Wait a minute! There are some amazing parallels between Benham and Rodney Dangerfield!)” I actually had to look up Rodney Dangerfield, but having done so, I think that having successfully relaunched his career in middle age is something for which he deserves respect, not ridicule.
  


• The Vadney has finally come out and said he was once elected a Fellow of the FRSA. Apparently, it didn’t occur to him that to keep his membership current, he was supposed to pay his dues every year. One might question the legality of even keeping the certificate under those circumstances.
  
  
• In the case of the IoL, the rules state specifically that the membership certificate must be returned if membership is discontinued. And the Vadney has admitted in many places (his “updated” CVs, for example, and this forum thread) that he is not a current member. And he still brags about having the certificate. Naughty, naughty!
  

Anyone for Green Herring?

There are red herrings...

Well, for once the Vadney has said something I would agree with: “Watch for Red Herrings with Internet Scoundrels”. Well, the “scoundrels” sounds a bit quaintly anachronistic, but then the Vadney appears to have no ambitions to be taken seriously.

Examples of red herrings to watch for would be:

(1) After being exposed as not having the credentials one has claimed, turning around and attacking the exposers, but never addressing the issue of the truth or falsity of one’s own claims.

(2) Accusing one’s exposers of defamation, and persisting with this accusation for weeks on end, without ever saying what it is that they have said that is alleged to be defamatory, or presenting one’s arguments as to why it supposedly isn’t true.

(3) Making all sorts of innuendos about alleged sexual orientations of and relations between one’s opponents.

(4) Persistently accusing one’s opponents of criminality, without ever giving the details or evidence.

(5) Rather than addressing the issue of the (undeniable) truth of the revelations against oneself, blustering about the means by which the information was obtained.

(6) Dismissing information as “inaccurate” on the basis of trivial details (such as reference to a BS degree instead of a BA), while never addressing the glaring issue (e.g. that one has claimed a non-existent MA degree). “And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?”—Matthew 7:3.

(7) Trying to link a very simple issue—the fact that one has been caught falsely claiming credentials—with an unrelated extravagant and frivolous lawsuit one has taken, and accusing one’s exposers of being in some sort of (unefined) “conspiracy” with the defendants in that suit.

(8) Publishing wild speculations about one’s exposers’ nationality, whereabouts, sources of wealth, etc., and drawing or suggesting even wilder conclusions of criminality, rather than, again, addressing the issue of the truth or falsity of the original statements that started the dispute.

Of course the Vadney has done all this and more. He has treated us to countless new posts, greater or lesser edits to existing posts, and attempts to comment on my blog, since 12 December 2007, without once mentioning the substance of the so-called defamation.

...and there are green herrings!

But I think the term “red herring” is not the most accurate for Vadney’s efforts. What we are dealing with here are rather “green herrings”: they are born of envy.

How else does one explain the following meandering drivel?

[...] Benham also claims to be a professinal translator, having various degrees, various diplomas, etc. The usual. A professional [!] translator myself, it beggars the imagination to think that Mr Benham can move about so much and still be a credible translator. Perhaps also, with all this movement either his translating business is extraordinarily good or he's independently wealthy but to be in so many places in such a narrow period of time is a bit incredible and still be able to make a living.

I quote my rates in euros, because I target the European market, but a quick conversion on XE.com shows that my advertised rates are about double the Vadney’s advertised rates. Not only that, until I came here to study, I was working at full capacity, whereas the Vadney only manages to get a trickle of work, despite his bogus qualifications and claimed quarter-century of experience. A few months ago, the Vadney announced on TranslatorsCafe.com that he was planning a European tour at the end of 2007. Apparently it never eventuated (for lack of money? or was it just another green herring to start with?), while here I am in Europe, living in a hotel.... Oh, and of course, I actually do have a recognized translation diploma or two, earned the hard way (by passing exams, not just putting some fabrication in my CV...).

And by the way, the vast majority of translators get their assignments and deliver their work by email; so it makes no difference where they are located, as long as there is Internet connectivity. And it happens that the cost of living is very low in Indonesia, and there is no income tax. So is it any wonder that I, working full-time at about double the Vadney’s rates, can afford to go on a study tour of Europe when he can’t?

Mr Vadney, if you want to be able to afford that European vacation, take some advice from me. Improve your skills, starting with your English spelling and grammar and moving on to elementary German; stop wasting your time and (eventually) money on frivolous lawsuits you can’t win; stop spending your time defaming your betters (yes! the word is carefully chosen) and start trying to build a career the slow but steady way. You’ve still got 7 or 8 years before standard retirement age, and look at me: I have built a successful career in about 4 years.

Finally, a pink herring

When the Vadney first started his grubby little blog, he used the pseudonym “BG”...while at the same time berating me for my alleged use of a pseudonym. Maybe like you, I wondered what the letters stood for. Then I noticed the email address from which originated the Vadney’s infantile attempts to comment on my blog: beaugars@.... Beau gars?? “Handsome young man”?? (And that’s a charitable translation....)

Judge for yourself.

Would you buy a used car from this man?

The mind vomits. The Vadney doesn’t just beggar belief: he positively buggers it. First of all, we get this headline: “Back on Track ... Requiem for Benham and Horne”, which might be construed as a death threat, but in the post beneath it Vadney makes the following solemn pronouncement:

Unless something extraordinary develops, I shall try to avoid any further comment on Mr Richard Benham and Mr Scott Horne. What more can be said about them[?] Old news.

This resolve lasts all of 2 hours 36 minutes, until, under the headline “Credentials Inc. and DegreeChk”, we get a lot of pap about my alleged “fraud” and “breach of [Credentials Inc.’s] conditions of service” Has anything “extraordinary” developed in those two-and-a-half hours? Unless the Vadney did some thinking, which really would be extraordinary, nothing new has happened at all. This latest post contains no new (mis)information.

The Vadney does, however, issue a challenge of sorts:

[...] I would challenge Mr Benham to provide the documentation of how he complied with Credential Inc.'s terms of service in the following areas or, in the alternative, if he did not comply with these requirements, how he managed to obtain what he represents to be accurate, truthful information? How about it Mr Benham?

Apparently, it has not sunk in to the Vadney that, as I said last time he raised this issue, it is none of his business how I got the information. If he is right in his belief that I have breached some agreement with Credentials Inc., then that is a civil matter between them and me. If he thinks that information on his degrees should not have been released to me, then he should take it up with Credentials Inc., or SUNY, on whose behalf they were acting.

If on the other hand, the Vadney thinks I have done something criminal, let him take it up with the police. But he’d better make sure he brings along a spare copy of The Vadney Act, because they probably haven’t heard of it.

If the Vadney wants his challenges to be taken seriously, he would do well to answer the simple yes/no questions I put to him some time ago in my post “Open challenge to the Vadney”. Unlike his inane questions, there is actually some point to his answering mine. It will provide good practice for the forthcoming defamation case. No doubt the Vadney will face these or very similar questions under cross-examination. If he applies his mind (for want of a better word) to providing clear answers to these questions, taking into account that the true answers are objectively provable to the criminal degree of proof and that perjury can land him in the slammer, he might have second thoughts (for want of a better word) about his current self-destructive course.

The main thing to bear in mind here is that the Vadney’s pontifications and expatiations on how I got the information are a diversion: he knows he lied for years about his qualifications, claiming an MA he never had. He knows I know it too and can prove it. So he is trying to distract attention with irrelevant and unfounded allegations.

And as for his parting shot:

And then you wonder why Benham is being investigated from so many quarters?!?!

it’s beneath contempt. There is no evidence I am being seriously investigated by anyone serious. If you go to anyone in authority with an obvious fabrication against someone, of course they’ll say “We’ll look into it”, but that does not mean you have achieved anything or even been taken seriously. It’s just a stock response to shut you up. Noöne takes Vadneyesque allegations seriously. Very few take the Vadney seriously.