Zuccarini responds to contempt charges, alleges contempt himself.
The ongoing battle of John Zuccarini and the assignee in Office Depot’s cybersquatting case is getting even more interesting.
To bring you up to speed:
-Zuccarini was found to have cybersquatted on Office Depot
-DS Holdings “bought” the judgment Office Depot won, so now it is owed the money (the IRS also has a tax lien)
-Zuccarini’s other domain names were to be used to satisfy the judgment in some way (monetization, auction, etc).
-A receiver was appointed in the case, and he let some of the domains expire, and they were then auctioned off at NameJet.
-Zuccarini sued NameJet and others over auctioning the domains
-DS Holdings and the receiver agreed they should auction the remaining domain names at TRAFFIC in October
-Zuccarini notified Latona’s and the TRAFFIC organizers that he would sue them if they auctioned the domain names.
-DS Holdings argued Zuccarini was in contempt of court for notifying the parties that they would be sued
Phew. Got that?
Now Zuccarini as responded (pdf) to the charges of contempt, and has himself levied charges of contempt against the receiver (Michael Blacksburg) and DS Holdings.
He also says DS Holdings is lying on a number of counts. For example, Zuccarini writes (he’s representing himself):
Then DSH, again tells an outright lie to the court, pg. 2@11-12: “Even Zuccarini has acknowledged that the proposed auction is a prominent and effective domain name auction.” To the contrary, Mr. Zuccarini has expressed that it would be the worst possible avenue to auction the domain names…
Defendant OBJECTS to the lie DSH has told and moves to have this whole pleading quashed and stricken from the record. DSH, ever since this matter was brought before this Court, has made libelous, slanderous, immaterial statements and this Court has stood idly by and allowed it. Now, DSH has resorted to outright lying.
Zuccarini also points out that he’s “clearly not in contempt of anything” since no court order has been directed to Zuccarini “about anything”.
Another wrench in the case: it turns out that the receiver is being represented by DS Holding’s attorneys in another case.
The Court should also be made aware, as it has recently come to my attention of the fact that the attorney’s for DSH, without regard to appearances or ethical standards as it relates to this case, currently represent the receiver Michael Blacksburg as a plaintiff, in ongoing litigation in the Northern District of California.
There is no doubt from the beginning of this action that the receiver Michael Blacksburg has been nothing but an advocate for DSH, from not notifying the Internal Revenue Service at the commencement of the case as he was legally bound to do, to not providing revenue reports as is required by law, until forced to by this Court’s order to do so. In these actions Blacksburg has ignored the duties of a receiver as required by the law to conduct himself as a neutral party in all matters of the case.
Zuccarini asks the court to remove Blacksburg as receiver.
Of course, the domain names are making money as they’re currently parked and apparently making close to $70,000 a year in revenue. Domain Name Wire has obtained a list of the domains at issue. Many of them are generic typos, such as horosope.com, astrolgy.com, and emplyment.com. Others are generics such as BadCreditLoans.com. A couple others might have trademark issues.
As of right now, it appears the majority of the domain names are parked with Dotzup.
One obvious question: why not just keep the domains parked rather than sell them at auction? The first $100,000 will apparently go to the IRS, and then the next tranche to DS Holdings, followed by the IRS again for another about $300,000. It would make sense to sell the domains only if it was for a high multiple that would satisfy the claims quickly.
Stay tuned.
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