And the latest story in As The Prenda Turns... comes (once again) from Ken over at Popehat. As you may recall, Judge Otis Wright hosted a big hearing in which he ordered pretty much everyone associated with Prenda Law to appear. We had talked about how there was a filing from some of the key players seeking to get out of the lawsuit. John Steele, Paul Duffy, Paul Hansmeier and Angela van den Hemel had hired a lawyer, Heather Rosing, who filed a notice on their behalf arguing that they shouldn't have to appear. She also showed up in court when they did not. Except, those four people, while closely linked together, were not everyone that Wright had ordered to show up. Among the others were Paul Hansmeier's brother, Peter Hansmeier and Mark Lutz. I was a bit surprised that the judge didn't seem to comment on the fact that neither seemed to file anything or to have a representative in court.

Well, it turns out that at least Peter Hansmeier tried to take things into his own hands and tried (and failed) to file a similar document pro se (representing himself) asking out of having to show up, arguing both that there was no jurisdiction over him and that he had nothing to do with anything. This document was filed back on March 8th, the same day as the Rosing filing for the rest of Team Prenda, but was only just recently put into PACER. There are a number of nutty things about this. First, the fact that Peter is filing pro se, rather than teaming up with his brother and his brother's partners. As Ken opines:

You know, if I got my brother involved in an enterprise that culminated in a furious federal judge demanding that he fly across the country to show cause why he shouldn't be sanctioned, I think I'd step up and represent my brother, or ask my attorney to represent my brother, or hire a separate attorney for my brother.

But, instead, Peter was apparently hung out to dry. And, because of that he made some mistakes. Some small, some big, but together they're pretty damning. The biggest is that he claims to have nothing to do with any of this... but he claims that he's representing Livewire Holdings LLC - one of the key entities involved in this whole mess, which Judge Wright has already made clear he believes is really a big part of the likely Prenda fraud.

There's also the fact that he claims he's in Minnesota, while claiming to be representing Livewire and giving its DC address. Oh, and the fact that you can't pro se for a corporation, but only for yourself. And then there's the other part which helped Judge Wright easily brush aside this request since, procedurally, he was required to give notice to the other parties in the case that he was making this motion, and he failed to do so. All combined, Ken points out that connecting yourself to an entity at the center of this while denying any connection is "a blunder of epic proportions." If only Peter could have found an actual lawyer to prevent him from making such mistakes...

Maybe if someone had referred Peter to a competent lawyer, or even hired one for him, he might have avoided such a blunder. Instead, it appears that the lawyers who got him into this mess - including his own brother - let him appear pro se and effectively incriminate himself.

Of course, some of that presumes that Paul Hansmeier is "a competent lawyer," and I think we can reserve judgment on that one...