One of the oldest (in terms of getting into domaining) and biggest domain portfolio owners of all time is on the verge of losing everything including all of his domain names according to a post on lawlessamerica.com.
The story is about Jeff Baron who you may or may not recognize, but the domains he registered back in the day were registered to Compana, LLC of Texas using the servers Compana.com which I and many domainers will certainly recognize.
He also owned a company called Ondova Limited.
According to the story Mr. Baron, who at one time owned through his company(s) over 1,000,000 domain names and was making upwards of $1.5 Million dollars a month, is on the verge of losing its all.
Some of the domains owned by Mr. Baron include, according to the story, Rewards.com, Lite.com , icy.com, phonecards.com.
According to the story Mr. Baron has been in a legal disputes since 2006 with a company called Netsphere as well as with a Munish Krishan and others.
We are not about to get into the details of the story (the author of the original post provides a lot of details although clearly from Mr. Baron’s side).
We have no independent knowledge of the story Mr. Baron’s activities or the legal proceedings but we have been around to know everything has two sides and we are certainly not picking one.
It does appear that Mr. Baron present situation is that his domain names have either been taken or are endanger of being taken at this point mostly due to legal fees and costs related to the legal proceedings.
For the record, I don’t believe I have ever met or even chatted with Mr. Baron and this is the 1st report I have read about this story.
Clearly the author of the story has a strong opinion on the story, we do not.
We do find it a fascinating story on someone who started in the domain industry back in what many would consider the prime time in 1999, built it up from nothing to over 1 Million domains, generating over 1 Million visitors a day and making as much as $1.5 Million a month.
Again we have no independent verification of any of these numbers but they are cited in the story.
Here is some of the background on Mr. Baron, as laid out by the author of the story a William Windsor who is not an attorney:
“Jeff Baron is an Internet pioneer who, at the age of 32, invented a technology in the early days of the Internet to make it easier to register Internet domain names. Jeff quickly became successful. His business was profitable and made money.”
“But today, Jeff Baron does not even own the shirt on his back.”
“Jeff Baron started an Internet business, Ondova, in 1999”
“Jeff Baron began developing specialized software to be used by Internet domain registrars, and he licensed the software to many domain name registrars, licensed by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN).”
“Soon, Jeff Baron, Ondova and its software became famous worldwide for its innovations in Internet domain name registrations. ”
“Ondova and its software quickly registered over a million domain names.”
“By 2001, Jeff Baron’s company personally owned several thousand domain names on websites that generated significant interest of Internet users worldwide.
“Ondova was able to register domain names such as rewards.com or lite.com for as little as $6 while others paid domain brokers millions of dollars for these type of domain names.”
“Jeff Baron was one of the first entrepreneurs to register many generic domain names for his own use. ”
“The business model was to identify and register generic domain names that would attract website visitors (by determining what Internet users were interested in); develop websites based upon related products for each domain name; generate income from advertising on the websites; increase visitors to the websites thereby increasing their value.”
“With the high number of visitors attracted to Jeff Baron’s company’s sites, his business began to resemble a content search site like Google. Jeff Baron had focused on registering “short, generic domain names” as brief as two letters.”
“The business grew from $0 to $1.5 million a month in revenue.”
“”The websites created were quickly generating 1,000,000 visitors a day. ”
The post goes into tremendous details about the case.
The post is quite lengthy but I urge all of you to read it all the way through.
The post is so lengthy it may well take 1/2 hour or more out of your Sunday to get through it all.
But how often do you get to read such a story in our space?
It’s clear that author of the original post’s opinion is that Mr. Baron got, and is getting screwed.
As we said we haven’t examined any of the court documents or chatted with any of the parties, so we have no opinion on the legal proceedings past or present but just found it a very interesting read.
The Washingtonexaminer.com also covered this story.
There is also a Facbook page set up called “Save Jeff Baron” that you can check out.
now I understand why some of domains registered with Compana drop last year and the move of other domains to Fabulous.
thanks for bringing this up.
This is the same case Andrew Allemann recently reported on.
http://domainnamewire.com/2012/01/12/wow-judge-orders-udrp-transfers-including-apple-typo-to-be-reversed/
The judge is clearly unqualified to hold the office.
Thank God, you have an extra one hour to read….
A strange story indeed. I have had several people over the past several years ask me to act as domain buyer broker for Compana domains.
Never got anywhere.
I just checked one domain and it points to 6pm.com which is owned by Zappos.
Compana aka or associated with Texas International Property Associates.
A fool and his money, eventually, are almost always parted. This story is just an example of how life typically works – this is a story of a scumbag and a dummy.
If I remember correctly, back in the old days of domaining, Compana, LLC owned a lot of trademark typo domains with tons and tons of type-in traffic.
Fascinating story, I will have to read the whole thing. I have said it in the past and I believe it to be true: this is an industry where you can be “worth” millions, yet not have a penny in the bank.
I had talked to Jeff Baron a few years ago, I could already tell he was a little broken. I have not read the original article, because I heard most of the story from Jeff. It’s pretty scary at the end of the day.
I do wish him luck and hopefully in the future he choses his business partners more carefully.
I just attempted to climb that mountain of an article, and after reading just a few paragraphs gave up. It’s very convoluted and a lot of the writing seems redundant to emphasize the authors viewpoints. Jeff Baron’s downfall seems to be his association with Munish Krishan. It’s a good cautionary tale of greed and betrayal and why partnerships are more often disastrous for one or both parties.
@ Big D –
“I do wish him luck and hopefully in the future he choses his business partners more carefully.”
No Partners – No problems –
No Lawyers – No Problems –
Therefore, any problems that do come about you are 100% responsible for.
Interesting, this story has been leaking for several months though.
The Dallas court seems to have ordered a liquidation of some of his domains to pay off lawyer fees.
@R-
“The Dallas court seems to have ordered a liquidation of some of his domains to pay off lawyer fees.”
Gosh – I am shocked to here this ::))
He should gather all documents and head straight for the Justice Department.
If Texas judges have broken rules then this is a case for the Justice Department.
A citizen of the United States can not be unlawfully oppressed by the government.
Woah, another great read!
However, you had not mentioned why he currently cannot own his own shirt?
The lawless artical was also quite the read, but like you said, clearly biased.
Thanks for the history lesson :0
“Jeff Baron was one of the first entrepreneurs to register many generic domain names for his own use.”
LOL
Somewhere in the rulebook of winning it is written:
Never partner with anyone to acquire skills that you can hire.
Wow this article is amazing on all sides. I wonder how much of it is creative license though.
The author sure wants to paint a nice picture here ; “Jeff Baron’s life was never easy.” “Jeff Baron was naïve, had little experience with “partners,” And he never wanted to be involved in immoral things like pornography but I’m sure domains that were typos of trademarks were ok .
That federal judge . . .yikes. Texas . Yikes. wow. Thanks for the link mike
Bank of America – Merill Lynch employees now use name @ baml.com for their email addresses. I wonder if BAML.com will become the new domain used by the entire bank for external customers eventually.
I wonder why they haven’t registered BAML.co? Does this mean .co isn’t taking off?
Just checked the trademark office site; there’s no trademark filed by anyone for the acronym “BAML”.
Who has the nads to register baml.co and try to sell to BofA? I surprised some competitor bank hasn’t grabbed the domain by now, turned on the email with the “capture all” option, and started receiving any email sent to the biggest bank in the world by any sender who failed to type in the “m” in .com.
Wow, huge security hole for such a big company, IMHO.
@Nuts because they have better things to do. No one effing cares about domains other than their email domain in MOST large corporations.
BAML
We actually use BOA and all our contact are still @bankofamerica.com
“@Nuts because they have better things to do. No one effing cares about domains other than their email domain in MOST large corporations.”
Yeah but it certainly looks nice, and professional!
I confrused..
@ asdf –
“Never partner with anyone to acquire skills that you can hire.”
…and if you cannot afford to hire them at what you can afford – even if hiring them for nothing – you will ALWAYS lose by partnering. This is not a time to be PARTNERING your .com’s with a silver toungue bullshitter – .com’s are not going away.
Weird shit happens to founders when their companies succeed. Everyone changes.
The problem is, they’re each dead-certain that their specific contribution to the operation was more essential than everyone elses, they personally worked harder than everyone else, they came up with better ideas, they are really the backbone of the whole operation and entitled to a larger cut of the pie.
I know of a couple startups who have a small group of core management (2-4 people) and source everything via contractors, all the way through beta, just to avoid ‘irreplaceable man syndrome’. By soft launch, they’re working with all new people. Even if there’s a strong temptation to haul a few early devs along for convenience sake, they don’t.
This guys problem is that he let a snake in the rookery and unfortunately for him, there’s enough money involved to draw in every asshole lawyer from here to Haifa. Even worse yet, he’s in Texas and it sounds like he’s got a real “Texan” for a judge. Never encountered a more culturally immature group of ego-maniacal blowhard nitwits in my life- to have one of those clowns as a judge presiding over you? He may as well just kill himself now.
Rule #3- Have employees, but never partners.
That article reads like shit, that’s what happens when you write an article with SEO at the forefront of your mind.
My…gosh…
Jeff’s own worst enemy is himself. He was impossible to deal with. You’d get to the point of making a deal with him and he’d weasel out or cause some problem, or involve a lawyer. The output of his actions are heartbreaking but this is all him. Misery loves company.
Ondova = Compana = Texas Intellectual Property Associates
This guy make Mike Mann seem normal, if that’s possible. Baron is a certain sign that Karma is indeed alive well and a factor in life. Anyone who feels sorry for this guy probably feels bad for Hitler.
I was approached about buying some of these names recently. If you have an very strong stomach for risk, it may be interesting…but, the appeals court filings state that the person selling the names does not have authority to sell.. Apparently, there is a dispute as to who has the real authority to sell. The Dallas court appointed a guy named Dameon Nelson as president of the company to sell the names, but the companies are foreign and state that Nelson has no such authority. It will be interesting to see what happens, but I have a feeling that these name sales will be reversed one day. It all seems very illegal. What will happen to the money that got paid if the sales are reversed?
Baron is the canary in the cole mine for all domainers with good portfolios. If this legal decision sticks, everyone is at risk for having all of their domain names (and bank accounts, home, everything else ) taken without notice, without a trial.
Baron made some mistakes..almost everone does, but what happened to him can happen to any domainer..or really any person with any assets, cash, whatever.
His case has nothing to do about trademarks or typos, except that it’s a dream for vulture lawyers…The lawyers are trying to capitalize on it to make it easer to burn up (sell) names to keep paying themselves for more trademark problems that they create.
I know…It should be “coal mine” not “cole mine”…Wish this site would allow edits
@ my domains
Lets be realistic. Baron is no canary in a coal mine. Having said that I am not exactly sure what kind of bird this guy is. Some say it is he and not the lawyers that is the true vulture, others say he is a pigeon, who knows, perhaps he is just an angry bird.
This guy thought that he was bigger, badder, smarter and faster than all the rest. The law doesnt take kindly to guys who think they can do what they want and flaunt it in the face of everyone looking on.
Mistakes? Lets be real, he made no mistakes, he made a deliberate and concerted effort to screw everyone he dealt with and to trade off of the fame of others. Sometimes I am afraid in the minds of the law the end justifies the means. Remember the OJ case? The law took a few liberties with the evidence, dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s. In their minds they had their man and they were not going to let him get away. That may be whats happening to Baron, his past may well have caught up to him. It can always be worse, he could be in Guatonimo on a water board! There ya go Jeff, your glass is half full.
Too bad Baron didn’t see the need to stuff some of that easy money he made into a mattress. Always good to have a few bucks on hand, especially when the judicial system comes calling.
See in America, if you have cash, these kinds of things don’t happen to you. You can buy your way out simply by retaining the right lawyers. Poor Jeff never saw that rainy day coming. Never put a couple bucks away for that rainy day. At the end of the day, on top of being a con, a thief and a horrible money manager, Jeff is apparently also a notoriously poor judge of character, or so he would have you believe. Its always the other guys fault right Jeff.
Perhaps what is happening to Jeff could happen to someone else but if you live your life and operate your business the way he has it should be expected. If this were to happen to an ordinary person they would get the help they needed but in this instance no one really cares what happens to Jeff. Like garbage, this guy is dirty, smelly and disposable.
Dream for vulture lawyers…..really. He WAS a dream for vulture lawyers when he was working. Thats when he was a dream. When he was in action. This guy ALONE is responsible for over a million dollars spent on udrp services. This guy cost brand owners over a million in udrp fees alone. Then there is the money he stole with his tm and typo names and you call the lawyers the vultures. Freaking PRICELESS.
I know more than most about Jeff Baron. He didn’t have control of the domain names since 2003 or so. He gave up control (unclear exactly why), and lawyers were running things for many many years. Every decision had to be approved by lawyers and trustees. There was no easy money to Baron because all of the money went to lawyers. None to Baron.
All of these typo names? They were renewed year after year after year by the lawyers (some trustees) who controlled these businesses. Jeff Baron did great things in the domain industry 10 years ago, until control was given to lawyers. It’s his fault for trusting so much, which is the lesson to be learned here. NEVER GIVE UP CONTROL
It’s sad that these facts will probably never come to light now that these same lawyers have got Baron in a headlock while they pound the crap out of him, and the truth will be suppressed forever. The lawyers have portrayed Jeff Baron as a villain while they steal millions of his dollars. It’s a lot like what the Nazis did.
People that think “this couldn’t happen to be because I’m different” need to think more critically.
@ tall “They were renewed year after year after year by the lawyers (some trustees) who controlled these businesses”
Your claim that the lawyers controlled and renewed his domains does not hold water. Baron had more than one iron in the fire. According to your conspiracy theory these lawyers renewed and controlled all of his domains ostensible leaving them in the name of corporations in which Baron had a beneficial interest. If what you say is true, why would they leave the names registered in the name of his company and even more importantly why would these lawyers mount defenses to udrp claims where there was an obvious infringement going on? Seems a little strange don’t you think. Why wouldn’t the trustee simply hand over questionable names when challenged? Does not make any sense to me.
This case is pretty well explained on http://www.LawInjustice.com and contains many of the court filings (albeit selected toward explaining the Baron side).
If you spend a while reading the documents and the section regarding Peter Vogel and the Gardere law firm, it becomes very clear that this is a scam of epic proportion.
This is how the scam works in part:
1) Peter Vogel’s law firm Gardere Wynne is a Trademark Plaintiff’s firm (i.e. they make a living from suing domainers). For Example, Gardere law firm prosecuted UDRPs against domainers for names such as FastForward.com, ACE.com, and NMC.com and countless more.
1) Starting in 2003, before they got control over Baron and his companies, Gardere firm sued Baron 3 times for trademark claims, but never won and never got any judgment.
2) Mr. Vogel had a close relationship with the judge overseeing the dispute Baron had with Munish Krishan –not a trademark dispute-, and got the judge to award themselves as a “receiver” over Baron and his companies, despite the case having settled.
3) Mr. Vogel and Gardere have had complete and absolute control over Baron’s companies by means of the receivership
4) After Gardere and Mr. Vogel seized control of Baron and companies through the unrelated receivership, they re-registered (renewed) tens of thousands of the exact same type of names that they had sued about in 2003.
5) Now that Mr. Vogel and the Gardere lawyers have control of Baron and his companies, Gardere paid itself approximately $2.5 million dollars of Baron’s companies money that Gardere took from Baron and his companies.
6) How does Gardere and his lawyers justify paying itself approximately $2.5 million in fees? You guessed it- trademark disputes—disputes that they created.
Remember, the Gardere firm and Mr. Vogel did not get control of Baron’s companies by winning any trademark suit. They got control through connections they had with the judge overseeing the partnership dispute, and shoehorned themselves into the mess.
Vogel and Gardere lawyers got the judge to give themselves absolute control and have been, seemingly purposefully, creating trademark disputes to justify their unbelievable fees.
The more light that gets shined on this, the more obvious it becomes that this is a pure scam.
@yourdomains, Wow! You obviously have a personal agenda here.
“cost brand owners over a million in udrp fees”
You write a lot like a IP lawyer who files UDRP complaints. Are you one?
“See in America, if you have cash…..You can buy your way out simply by retaining the right lawyers”
Lawyers trying to convince clients to give them their life savings say these type of things
“and you call the lawyers the vultures. Freaking PRICELESS”
defending your brethren lawyers again?
How can you be so indignantly self-righteous about trademarks when you have no problem committing blatant libel and defamation?
Something is fishy about you. My bet is that you are either an IP lawyer or one of the sleeze bags discussed in the LawlessAmerica article.
i’ve read some of compana’s litigation years ago. one case involving a foreign entity had some good discussion from a texas judge (perhaps not the one in question here) on the registrar agmt forum selection clause.
but if i recall correctly my impression after reading a few cases was that this domainer has a penchant for litigation and protecting his “reputation”. could just be the texas attitide. or maybe it’s something more. in any event, it’s expensive.
it sounds like some trademark lawyers got a taste of the money involved in the registrar business and domaining and, surprise, they decided to get into the action. nothing new there. trademark lawyers are behind some of the registries as well. they follow the money.
someone asked why would trademark lawyers want to keep these infringing domains in the hands of the domainer? well, why not? whatever produces the most income. keep the client’s parking revenue coming in and then siphon it off via legal fees.
yes, there are some lawyers who would do that.
@deputy (albeit selected toward explaining the Baron side).
Unfortunately, one side of the story does not a story make, and more unfortunately for Baron is the fact that you can’t trust the words of a proven thief and con artist.
Scam of epic proportions? As much as its fun to fantasize about these things and speculate wildly about what on the surface would appear to be system wide corruption anyone truly interested in the FACTS can download the court documents in their entirtey as opposed to focusing on the snippets the Baron side has chosen to rely upon to purport his innocence.
One responder here said this case is not about typos and tms, that notion is patently false. Typos and tms are at the very core of all of Jeffs problems. You see Jeff was sued into oblivion for typosquatting. It got so bad that Jeff thought it might be wise to bankrupt the corporation that was the subject of the actions. Subsequently Jeff entered into a settlement agreement which big suprize did not honor. Not only did he not honor the settlement agreement, he went to great lengths to spend whatever was left of Ondova to avoid paying anything to the estates crditors. His strategy of filing one frivoulous motion after another lead to frustration for the court who took extraordinary measures to stop Baron from forcing his accusers to spend money needlessly and to protect what was left of the estate of Ondova.
After countless efforts to frustrate the process the court declared Baron a “vexacious litigant”. He had been warned that continuing along that path might prove costly:
“IT IS ORDERED that Appellant’s motion for stay of the receivership order and the lockdown injunction pending appeal is DENIED. Appellant is cautioned that further frivolous filings could result in sanctions.”
Baron, as usual did not listen. On February 3, 2011 the District Court entered its Order denying the Motion to Stay. The District Court found that Baron was a vexatious litigant, and that:
• Baron hired and fired lawyers in bad faith as a means of delaying court proceedings
• Baron’s conduct had increased the cost of litigation for all parties
• Baron’s conduct had exposed the Ondova Bankruptcy Estate to significant expense
• Baron had repeatedly ignored prior orders of the court
• Baron had hired lawyers in bad faith with no intention of paying them
• There was an immediate threat that Baron would transfer assets outside the United States.
Baron is a victim of his narcicism and grred. It is not so much a system run amuck as he might have you believe as it is the work of a con artist, scammer and thief
@my domains: libel and defamation? I am uncertain as to what you are talking about here. I guess that makes two of us. Do yourself a favor, quit hating, its not good for you and besides if you are a typical domainer, you will eventually need a lawyer. Remember, if what happened to Baron could happen to anyone (cough lol) you could be next. Perhaps then you will have a greater appreciation for lawyers.
@Yourdomains, Your posts are full of blatant lies.
Yes, this is clearly a lawyer scam and you appear to be one of the scammers.
@ Mydomains outed you for being a lawyer after you concealed that fact.
Why don’t you identify your name to this forum? Is it Peter S. Vogel?
You are a scummy sleeze bag who deserves to be locked up for the rest of your life.
@Deputy I put you on notice to prove that anything I said was a lie. Prove it and I will reveal myself. I would ask that you return the favor and reveal yourself so that we might better get better acquainted with one another. I would like to give you a free first class eductation on slande and libel. Interested? From the tone of your posts and the adamance of your position in the absence of any evidentiary documentation to support it I can only assume that you yet another delusional domainer who has managed to your adjust your morals sufficiently to justify the abhorent actions of others, and perhaps yourself. As a domainer I do see a business opportunity. Share your name so I can flesh that potential out. In the meantime, do yourself a favor and stop getting your information from National Enquirer like websites and study the facts. Please indulge me and reveal the lies contained in my posts. As far as making it personal I think you may want to draw on the experiences of Mr Baron himself who like you had a penchance for making it personal. What he did or will eventually learn is that you really need to pay attention to who you screw with. As was mentioned earlier here sometimes in the name of justice, however misguided people do cross a few ts and dot a few is to make thinks work, for the benefit of all I am sure. No one woke up one day and decided to piss of Barons cornflakes, he invited the troubles that found him and this much is true, if your looking for trouble it will certainly find you and no one is immune. In closing, I have not as you suggest been “outed” as a lawyer, I did not as you suggest “conceal that fact” and I am not as you suggest Peter Vogel. Strike three. Your reliance on supposition is unparalleled. Do yourself a favor, if you ever are sued, get yourself a lawyer because the court would eat you alive.
@yourdomains, Thank you for “putting me on notice”, but you are full of crap. Look in the mirror and you’ll see that “thief” ,” liar” and “con-artist” that you falsely portray victims of being.
Why are you, a lawyer who sues domainers, posting on a domainer forum anyway? Looking for more victims to target?
Your position seems to be that when Peter S. Vogel’s lawyers sued a domainer for fastforward.com and other generic three character names, you believe those domainers should be tortured with a “water board” (your quote).
Because your posts are so replete with lies and deception, it would take hours to refute them. Like most lawyers, you’ve written 90% lies and cleverly used a few snippets of real facts but have taken those facts out of context to create a completely false impression. You may be clever, but you are deceitful and a deliberate liar.
It’s clear to me from reading the court records that Jeff Baron has been seriously ill from several health problems for many years. He’s not doing any infringing and you know it. But your lawyer brothers like Peter S. Vogel are deliberately infringing . Trying to blame and vilify this guy who has essentially been on his death bed (contributed by you and your lawyer buddies) so you can rob him while he’s defenseless is just sick.
Vilifying Baron is all about feeding your million dollar salary, falsely making your victims appear to be villains to inoculate yourself and your clan from the retribution you deserve.
Why didn’t you and these lawyers want Baron to have a jury trial ? Because the jurors would hear the facts and probably go home, write their Senators, call the U.S. attorney and demand that these lawyers and judges be indicted.
You said “Do yourself a favor, if you ever are sued, get yourself a lawyer”
Get one like you so you put me in a receivership, rob me blind and laugh while you are doing it?
The Hitler reference was appropriate.
Jeff had some absolutely killer names, like
DEATHTOJEWS.com
For those of you who feel sorry for this scum and think of him as a businessman, Sieg Heil
@ Never Forget
You would realize how absurd your slander of Jeff Baron is if you knew him.
The stories of this case keep coming: http://www.texasinsider.org/human-puts-receivership-federal-judge-dallas-texas/
aa
@Your Domains
His registrar company gave up ownership of all names a long time ago, and Compana LC had some agreement to remain registrar for a time. Except for Compana LC, all of the companies were owned and controlled by lawyers. Baron didn’t have control. You can see a lot of evidence of this in the court papers too.
He wanted desperately to delete names, but could not….For example when he tried to delete names, Munish Krishan (the pornographer who owned freesex.com and has a felony theft and forgery) got an injunction against Jeff Baron and his registrar company prohibiting domain name deletions.—That’s the same order where the judge threatened Jeff Baron with “death” and the “army navy air force and marines to enforce my order” if Jeff Baron tried to delete names, and also said.”you are a fool, a fool , fool to screw with a federal judge, and if you don’t understand that, I can make you understand it”.
I’m not sure how much more obvious it can be that he didn’t have control unless he wanted to face “death”.
Others have speculated on why the lawyers renewed the names. You can make your own speculations on that, but the lawyers got enormous payments because these names stayed registered. What do you think
@Tallboy
When you say that his company gave up ownership and control of the domain names long ago the question becomes what or when specifically a long time ago means to you. Listen, I am not agruing that Baron gave up control. HE DID GIVE UP CONTROL. The reason that he gave up control is because he filed an assignment in bankruptcy. Well, when one files bankruptcy, guess what, they give up control of their assets. Thats what happens in bankruptcy. SO it is true that he gave up control. No argument there. Still the question is when and the answer is not all that long ago. Its not like the lawyers have owned, controled and monetized his portfollio for year upon year as seems to be the suggestion of some here. If you take a look at the whois for some of the domain names in question it is very who is controlling the domains names
servers.com
Registrant:
Ondova Limited Company – Daniel J Sherman, Trustee
Theres no plot in play here where they keep the name and monetize it clandestinely for their own benefit. The name is clearly marked as being part of the corp estate.
Listen, after making a settlement agreement Baron brought scores of motions before the court trying to roll back the hands of time. He brought in a score of lawyers (like 22 or more if I recall) filing motion after motion on things that had already supposedly been resolved. To add insult to injury Baron either refused or failed to pay these lawyers for their services in what amounted to hundreds of thousands of dollars.
His claim was that these lawyers were over charging him. Did the lawyers overcharge him? Perhaps they did but its curious to me how not a single poster here makes note of the things that the demonized judge ferguson did to try and assist Baron. One of the lawyers submitted a claim for expenses billing out at 700 an hour. The supposedly “evil” judge made a ruling intimating that was unreasonable and capped the hourly rate at $400 per hour. I can tell you for sure that 400 an hour is not unreasonable for lawyers doing this kind of work.
It was these countless motions, his failure to keep to his agreements, his failure to pay for services rendered which lead the judge to label him a vexacious litigant and which made the judge believe that drastic measures had to be taken in order to preserve the estate and the rights of the creditors under the bankruptcy proposal.
Listen, don’t get me wrong, I do not support the kind of language and intimidation employed by Ferguson but his choice of words tend to lead me to the conclusion that he was frustrated by a guy who has made a living off of frustrating others as opposed to some kind of deep rooted perversion in the justice system.
To suggest that “lawyers got enormous payments because these names stayed registered” is not quite accurate. While true to an extent the fact of the matter is that it was the estate of ondova that got the money and the court was responsible for redistributing those funds to the crditors of the estate. So in effect the lawyers did benefit because they got paid from the estate but again to suggest that numerous federal court judges and twenty plus legal firms and more than 20 lawyers were all in cahoots as part of some grand and elaborate scheme to defraud Baron is simply not a tenable argument. Unlike the friends of Jeff and unlike the domaining community who see some huge injustice here the court saw Jeff for exactly what he was, a user, an abuser a scam artist and a con man. I said it before, this guy was the sole cause of tons of frustration even as his ship was sinking he continued to play his games. Unfortunately for him he came up agains some opponents bigger, stronger, smarter, faster and way more powerful than he. Whether he got what he deserves is subject to some debate I suppose but judge fergusons line of thought was pretty clear; that being that at its base level the ends justified the means. Funnily enough it was exactly that line of thinking that got Baron where he is now. Karma is indeed a bitch
In the words of Jeff Baron himself:
“I do not think the Judge is acting with some evil intent in denying me access to my own money”
Case 3:09-cv-00988-F Document 521 Filed 05/05/11
@Your Domains
Jeff Baron gave up control of the domain names many years before the bankruptcy of his company–It was around 2003. Since you are a lawyer, I am sure that you understand this.
I keep reading your comments here, and it’s obvious you are trying to defend some really evil actions that these lawyers did. Some of the other posters have suggested that you are part of this so-called scam. You need to tell us who you are, because it appears you are making things up to cover-up for someone or for yourself.
He didn’t fail to pay lawyers. They were paid over $ 5 million and more involuntarily because they had control over the companies.
The quote where the judge threatened Jeff Baron with death and the navy, marines, air force, was the very first hearing in front of this judge. The judge couldn’t have been “frustrated” with him, because the judge just started the case. Interestingly, the judge’s brother in law is partners with a lawyer that the same judge allowed to “intervene” in the suit claiming $7 million from Jeff Baron for three weeks work. That may be the reason for this apparent corruption against Jeff Baron.
Tall, the matter is not going to be decided in the comment section of a domain name forum. I suppose the bottom line is that if Baron has been mistreated by Ferguson as he you and others here seem to be suggesting then he always has the option of reffering the matter to a court of competent jurisdiction. In this instance I guess you have to hope and pray that the 5th circuit court of appeals hasn’t been infiltrated by crooked establishment types. The downside of all of this is that even if he obtains a decision that he was wrongfully placed into receivership it wont change a thing, other than that it may put him in a position where he will be able to ask people if they’d “like fries with that”. I certainy hope that things clear up for him so he can continue on with the great philanthropic work he is widely recognized for, or used to be at least. LOL.
“He didn’t fail to pay lawyers.”
Really! I guess in your eyes the twenty law firms that laid claim to close to a million in unpaid fees are all lying too huh. Ok, you win, the world is flat after all.
As far as revealing myself, I will give you the same offer I gave mydomains, share your name, I’ll share mine, then the real fun can begin.
@TheTruth,
I read that quote too. You can read the entire document at http://www.lawinjustice.com/521%20%20144%20Affidavit%20of%20Baron%20to%20recuse.pdf.
Everyone should read this. It is a motion to recuse Judge Furgeson, which judge Furgeson refused to rule on.
Despite this judge threatening Jeff Baron’s life, leaving him destitute (allegedly illegally), Jeff Baron is still very respectful of the judge in his motion, and respectfully explains how the judge has a bias toward his lawyer friends, and should recuse himself from judging these matters.
It is telling and admirable that Jeff Baron remains extremely professional –even in the midst of being subjected to one of the most unconscionable atrocities in this country I’ve read about. Most of us would have cracked-up long ago if we were in similar circumstances.
This is text copied from the beginning of the motion you mention:
“I believe the Hon. Senior Judge William Royal Furgeson has a strong and longstanding personal bias for believing lawyers are good, honest people because they are lawyers. I believe Judge Furgeson has a personal bias against giving credence to allegations of poor conduct by attorneys.
Judge Furgeson clearly has held this personal bias for a very long time. I recognize that it is a positive attitude and is probably very helpful in most of the cases being handled by the Judge. It is also probably a good thing to appoint judges who have a positive view and bias for believing all lawyers are good, honest people. It likely brings out the best of many lawyers, in many situations.
Unfortunately, in this particular case where my opponents are attorney-parties the Judge’s deep-seated bias in favor of attorneys has led to a gross injustice and has empowered dishonest attorneys to victimize me. I cannot receive fair and impartial treatment nor a fair and impartial hearing before Judge Furgeson with respect to attorneys’ claims because of his deepseated personal bias. The Judge’s bias is shown by the following facts:
1) Judge Furgeson said that he has a deep-seated personal view that he believes that lawyers are important to the rule of law and that giving credence to accusations against lawyers would be bad for society. In relation to his personal bias that lawyers must not be found to have acted poorly:”
Everyone should be extremely alarmed at the Jeff Baron case. Though the wicked judge who threatened to call in the Armed forces and/or death – has now been compelled to resign from the bench, the grand larceny against Jeff Baron continues.
Because the judge said, no matter how many times you win, we’re going to get everything you have!
REALLY!
This is organized crime, via crooked lawyers (THE worst kind, as the Receiver over Jeff Baron was Peter Vogel, whose firm was conducting discussions on working with Jeff Baron – and then appears to have utilized privileged information to work with Jeff’s adversaries).
Organized criminal activity (Racketeering) that the Judges are assisting.
Even when the 5th Circuit Court of the United States ruled the the Receivership was an abuse of discretion and ordered all assets to be returned to their rightful owner – the new judge simply refused to give Jeff Baron an evidence hearing – and gave even more ill gotten gains to Peter Vogel and other wayward counsels.
This case is the worst I’ve ever seen.
And I’m the guy suing Mitt Romney, Bain Capital and Goldman Sachs for Racketeering.
I read that quote too. The whole document is at http://www.lawinjustice.com/521%20%20144%20Affidavit%20of%20Baron%20to%20recuse.pdf.
Everyone should read this. It is a motion to recuse Judge Furgeson, which judge Furgeson refused to rule on.
Despite this judge threatening Jeff Baron’s life, leaving him destitute (allegedly illegally), Jeff Baron is still very respectful of the judge in his motion, and respectfully explains how the judge has a bias toward his lawyer friends, and should recuse himself from judging these matters.
It is telling and admirable that Jeff Baron remains extremely professional –even in the midst of being subjected to one of the most unconscionable atrocities in this country I’ve read about. Most of us would have cracked-up early on if we were in similar circumstances.
This is the beginning paragraph from the motion you quoted:
“I believe the Hon. Senior Judge William Royal Furgeson has a strong and longstanding personal bias for believing lawyers are good, honest people because they are lawyers. I believe Judge Furgeson has a personal bias against giving credence to allegations of poor conduct by attorneys. Judge Furgeson clearly has held this personal bias for a very long time. I recognize that it is a positive attitude and is probably very helpful in most of the cases being handled by the Judge. It is also probably a good thing to appoint judges who have a positive view and bias for believing all lawyers are good, honest people. It likely brings out the best of many lawyers, in many situations.
Unfortunately, in this particular case where my opponents are attorney-parties the Judge’s deep-seated bias in favor of attorneys has led to a gross injustice and has empowered dishonest attorneys to victimize me. I cannot receive fair and impartial treatment nor a fair and impartial hearing before Judge Furgeson with respect to attorneys’ claims because of his deepseated personal bias. The Judge’s bias is shown by the following facts:
1) Judge Furgeson said that he has a deep-seated personal view that he believes that lawyers are important to the rule of law and that giving credence to accusations against lawyers would be bad for society. In relation to his personal bias that lawyers must not be found to have acted poorly:”
I’m from the UK. The legal profession is one of the MOST CROOKED, SELF-PROTECTING, INCOMPETENT PROFESSIONS ON EARTH !
I have experience of their incompetence…HOWEVER THEY ARE GOOD AT WRITING OUT BIG BILLS ………FOR THEIR INCOMPETENCE !
In the UK, try getting the Law Society to take action against Lawyers…..almost impossible !! They look after their OWN …..EVERY TIME !!
I despise the legal profession in the main !
If nothing else I deserve credit for not being involved in this controversy, but I do know a lot about scammers and have some ideas:
First off the lawlessamerica is done by him and his people as is the facebook and the anonymous posts above, I always used my own name on Crime.org to be clear what was going on and in every blog post, facebook, I am never anonymous on this blog or anywhere, scammers need to hide. However I am sure he got robbed and scammed by lots of lawyers who will keep it going as long as possible. For the basic dispute I imagine both parties are at fault and they are using bad math and false information, the Munish character is clearly a piece of work though and possibly a thief, not sure about that.
My favorite post about any given Mike Mann post is how he could be addressing the average temperature of Greenland in July yet deep down, he sincerely believes it somehow relates to him personal and without fail, he will reference himself a minimum of three times, always, in every reply he makes.
I’m almost willing to offer a bounty for anyone who can find me a Mike Mann post where he DOESN’T reference himself.
Mike
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