Moreover, both cases show obvious signs of being fake: the signatures of defendants “Mark Wilkerson” and “Daniel Perez” appear to have been written by the same hand; and the very carefully handwritten signature of “Mark Wilkerson” spells his name as “Wilerkson.” And in the Visionstar case, the allegation in paragraph 13 about the IP address from which the supposedly defamatory reviews were posted to the Ripoff Report web site is a highly implausible. Generally speaking, a subpoena can be issued in connection with a case seeking to identify the poster of an anonymous comment, but that is something that happens after the complaint is filed, not something that can be listed in the complaint.
Undersigned counsel has contacted inside counsel for Xcentric Ventures, the company that operates Ripoff Report, and ascertained that his client has never received any subpoena to identify the anonymous author of the reports cited in the Visionstar complaint; that attorney also represented that he checked the IP addresses for the reports cited in the complaint, and that none of them was associated with the address 12.4.33.71 as the complaint alleges.
Moreover, when I called the plaintiff in Cohen v. Wilkersonto ask about the case, he stated that he didn’t authorize its filing, and didn’t know who the ostensible defendant (Wilkerson) was. He said he had hired Richart Ruddie to do something about some posts that he (Cohen) thought were libelous, but he had not expected or authorized this lawsuit. And I think that is plausible, though I of course can’t know for sure. (I tried to reach the plaintiff in Visionstar, but haven’t heard back.)
