Sometimes people do really stupid things, like corrupting, altering or falsifying records of court judgments. Something that is so not worth the gains involved if caught that it’s kind of surprising anyone would do this. Yet people do this because, well… people.
Geoffrey S. Berman, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, announced that MICHAEL ARNSTEIN was sentenced to nine months in prison for conspiring to forge a federal judge’s signature on counterfeit court orders that ARNSTEIN submitted to Google to get negative reviews about his business removed from Google search results. ARNSTEIN pled guilty on September 15, 2017, before U.S. District Court Judge Andrew L. Carter Jr., who imposed the sentence.
In the complaint filing, it shows how Arnstein bragged about saving money by simply photoshopping these court orders and getting Google to remove any URL he wanted, as it seemed that Google would not independently verify the legitimacy of these court orders before removing the URLs as directed.
Arnstein outlined his ruse in an email obtained by prosecutors.
“I spent 100K on lawyers to get a court order injunction to have things removed from Google and Youtube, only to photoshop the documents for future use when new things ‘popped up’” he wrote in the email, according to the criminal complaint.
“I could have saved 100K and 2 years of waiting/damage if I just used photoshop and a few hours of creative editing … Lawyers are often worse than the criminals.”
In our opinion, counterfeiting court orders in any way is an act that undermines the very structure of democracy, an act which is a direct attack on the rule of law. Fraudulently weaponizing the justice system for one’s own ends like this, ought to receive more like nine years in jail, not merely nine months.
Shockingly, we have unearthed incidents of lawyers taking part in similar illegal schemes to remove unflattering results, risking their professional career and even being disbarred as a result. We will post them shortly so keep checking this space for updates.
Read the entire press release here:
Anecdote: When not forging court orders, Arnstein is also a “fruitarian” and a competitive runner who has raced in marathons, ultra marathons and triathlons.
Sh1t Lawyers Say 
One reply on “Faking Court Orders To Remove Google Results is Very Stupid and Illegal”
Hey had some really tasty fruit recipes. Pasta from shredded coconut etc.