Barrett --

Well, you certainly have an interesting "style" of writing -- very funny in a sort of "monkey on crack" motif :) It's hard to parse the reality from the comedy among your prose, but entertainment-value aside, let me see if I can short-circuit this whole process and make everyone happy.

I had corresponded a little more than a year ago with your friend Mirna and explained clearly that there really isn't any basis in fact or law as to monies owed to you. Truly, I can see your frustration -- whether you know it or not, the same company and website that you say owes you money owes me money too... and lot more than what you're claiming -- and I have to say if the writing you did was as entertaining as your email, then I'm sure whatever your wrote was hilarious stuff. 

But really.... Barrett, I have never hired you, directly or indirectly, to do anything for me. Ever. Which is not to say that I wouldn't, but I just haven't had the opportunity to do it. I've never talked to you, emailed you, met you, even dreamed of you.... except for the single occasion in which you delivered a written demand for payment. I'm sure you weren't at your best that day, so I'm excusing your behavior.

I've attached a copy of the email I sent Mirna, which says as much. But note that I also offered something, which you now also are offering.... you don't seem a bad guy, and I know I'm not either. Neither one of us want to waste money on lawyers or annoying one another -- I'm sure we'd both be skilled at doing that.

I had made pretty much the exact same offer you're making a year ago, but for whatever reason, no one ever followed up on it... Mirna never contacted me, and neither did you. I'm not sure why that is.

So, here's the bottomline:

a) I accept your offer.... $1500 is a reasonable cost to settle any claim you may think you have, and it is within the range that I would pay a lawyer to take appropriate legal steps to deal with your claim. And frankly, I would rather pay you than a lawyer... you're funnier AND a better writer than any lawyer I know.

b) Note that you'll need to sign some sort of letter of understanding that puts this to rest once and for all. It's not that I don't trust you but.... well, I don't trust you. I kind of like you, but I don't trust you. No offense, of course, I don't mean anything untoward by that.

c) As part of the deal, I'd like a copy of the book you mention you wrote. Since you're claiming your wrote something for me, I might as well get to read something you wrote, right?  :)

Let me know if this works for you.

VIncent Garofalo

On Mon, Sep 29, 2008 at 7:25 PM, Vincent Garofalo <vincentgarofalo@rocketmail.com> wrote:

Dear Ms. Hariz --

I have received your letter dated September 17th, 2008 in regards to a claim by your client, Barret Brown.

As you can imagine, your payment demand is quite unexpected. Let me review the facts of the matter to help frame this discussion:

- You make repeated claims that I (I would assume you mean "personally") owe your client the amounts you claim.

I am not sure on what basis you make this claim.

EVOTE.COM was a website that was operated and owned by a company called Ideacast. Both the website, and the company, went out of business sometime in 2005, after the 2004 elections. To be honest, I am not sure the exact date that the website ceased operation, but it was several years ago. It's not conceivable that anyone is using, or even is in possession of, the content that your client claims to have written (and which I would assume he in fact did write... I have no information to doubt this).

You obviously have a claim with EVOTE.COM, or perhaps Ideacast. Not with me. While one of my companies was an investor in Ideacast, and hence, EVOTE.COM, your client certainly did no work for me on a personal basis. To my knowledge, I've never met, spoken, or had contact with him in the past.

I'm sure you understand this, but I can sympathize with your inability to collect the funds your client is owed by an entity that no longer exists. In point of fact, on a different basis, I also have claims potentially payable by Ideacast, but that's immaterial -- no one is going to be paying them, either.

- I am not sure if you are aware of the manner in which your client delivered your letter to me. I suggest you discuss this with him, and the ramifications of his actions.

Given these facts, however, I am willing to discuss a couple of potential approaches to settling this whole issue.

This is what I would need to see:

a) It's unreasonable to think that I should personally reimburse your client for work he did for a company that I didn't even fully own. Quite frankly, there's no basis in law or fact for me to pay your client anything.

However, I am also cognizant of the cost of defending your claim -- ultimately I believe that your claim would be denied in a court proceeding but, as you are aware, any such proceeding would not be inexpensive.

Any settlement amount would need to be concomitant with such expense, otherwise there is no financial incentive to reach a monetary settlement.

b) Your client would need to be willing to offer written assurances that any and all claims he has would be liquidated by any settlement, that such settlement would be complete and final. I would provide a draft of such a letter for his signature.

If these terms are acceptable to your client, then I think there is some basis to proceed to settling this matter.

Please contact me at your earliest convenience.

Sincerely Yours,

Vincent Garofalo

From: Barrett Brown <barriticus@gmail.com>
Subject: Payment
To: vincent@seido.com, vincentgarofalo@rocketmail.com
Date: Thursday, October 29, 2009, 1:01 AM

Vince-

It occurs to me that you have yet to pay me the $5,000 or so I've been trying to get from you for quite a while now. I'd be willing to settle for $1,500 if you could get the money to me in the next week or so. My lawyer's moving up to NYC on the first, so I'd be in a better position to actually take legal action against you. I'm also a bit more resourceful than I was last time we spoke insomuch as that I now write for Vanity Fair, The Huffington Post, Skeptic, The Onion, True/Slant - all of this has happened in the last three months - and have my second book coming out next year, in addition some other projects. So it's only a matter of time before I have enough extra money to hire a private investigator.

Additionally, I've discovered a very effective way to put some heat on those who owe me money - a fellow named Tony Anglesey, for instance, owed me $900 for work I did for him a year ago and had initially declined to pay me; he has now changed his mind due to an interesting trick I pulled that had prevented him from being able to do business with anyone who bothered to Google his name - which is most people these days. What I did was detail the situation on a site called Encyclopedia Dramatica, where I've been an editor for a while, and did so in such a way that this account was the first result for his name. Aside from lost business opportunities, the article would have been seen by anyone who looked him up for any reason, for all eternity. You may recall that you did not come off as looking particularly honest in the brief exchange you had with the administrator of Writer's Weekly a couple years back; the fact that a CNN contributor who met you, is owed money by you, and knows full well your role in Evote would just make the piece all the more blatantly damning, and Constantini has agreed to help me out on this. As for Anglesey, I took his article down two days ago when cut me a check; if you'd like to verify all this with him, I can put you in touch.

If this is acceptable to you, please get back to me ASAP. Again, I would want the check for $1,500 within a week, as I need to pay off some unexpected medical bills and won't be getting paid for all of my nifty recent work for another month and a half. As I noted above, I'm going to be bringing in a lot more money soon, so at some point I'd be less interested in receiving a settlement than I would be in attempting to collect the entire $5,152 and also setting it up so that you'll be forever known for what you did to me; in case you're wondering, I lost my apartment, went into debt, and had to go work as a furniture mover for about six months because of the way in which you screwed me over. You can probably imagine that this is the sort of thing I'm not going to just give up on, no matter how much money I'm about to bring in with my new gigs or how famous I get or whatever else.

Hope to hear from you soon, by which I mean tomorrow at the latest.

Regards,

Barrett Brown

Brooklyn, NY

512-560-2302