Edward
B. Friedman Responds to Posting Notice
----- Original Message -----
From: "Ronald J Riley" <rjriley@InventorEd.org>
To: "Lisa Reckner Miller" <Lisa@friedman-law.com>
Sent: Friday, September 29, 2000 11:03 PM
Subject: Re: ISC & the Caution Pages
Mr. Edward Friedman,
I used email because it is the easiest way of
communicating considering my
schedule.
While I understood that your first choice was to remove
all mention of the RICO
action I also told you that I could not do so.
I have detailed notes which I
will recap in a response by Monday. You supplied
the Neustel
letter and agreed
during our 9-28-2000 telephone call that posting it was
an acceptable solution
(in your view 2nd best to complete removal) as long as it
was in conjunction
with the quote from your Sept. 20th letter. I have
done this.
In my previous letter, the one dated
9-25, I said "I do thank you for supplying
the letter which Mr. Neustel signed, for I had not seen
it. Mr. Neustel was
adamant that he could no longer discuss the case or even
ISC. I have to say that
I am familiar with Mr. Neustel's writing style and this
letter does not appear
to have been drafted by him. Considering what he had told
me about the case
before the gag agreement went into effect I have no
choice except to think that
he was coerced into signing this document."
You responded to this at length during our telephone
conversation, telling me
that my conclusions were wrong and that if I knew more
about the case that I
would not hold the same opinion.Virtually every word you
said, and the tone,
implied that Mr. Neustel had done something wrong.
Yet no specifics were
forthcoming.
I am at a loss as to the basis of your demand that I not
reference a court
document in any manner. The RICO
action is public information. It is
information which is of interest to the inventor
community. It bears directly
on the merits of the recently passed patent reform bill, S.1948
and discussions
related to strengthening the inventor promoter provisions
of contained in that
bill.
Since I am not qualified to be able to judge the merits
of your position in
regards to these matters you asked to talk with an
another attorney. The point
being that they could explain and verify your position
about the law for my
benefit. Clearly I am not a lawyer but I really
want to do the right thing.
Mr. Levy has agreed to join a conference call between you
(Mr. Friedman) and I.
Paul Alan Levy
Public Citizen Litigation Group
1600 - 20th Street, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20009
(202) 588-1000
http://www.citizen.org/litigation/litigation.html
I suggest that we set up a call for Monday. Please
advise what times are
acceptable and I will try to coordinate the call.
Also, please give me some
alternate times for Tuesday, just in case we are unable
to find a jointly
acceptable time for Monday.
Other commitments make it difficult for me deal with
these issues at this time.
I have made a serious good faith effort to address your
concerns while
maintaining journalistic integrity. I delayed the
first segment of my trip in
part to address your concerns. I have bent over
backwards to accommodate your
requests and doing so has been very time consuming.
In fact, I have been
putting out fires all week as a direct result of the
amount of time I have
devoted to this issue. I can not continue making an
endless number of changes
to the web site.
The sequence of events are:
1) I received your letter dated Sept 20th on Friday Sept
22 and:
a) Immediately offered an explanation
for my comments and a public
apology on
the web as requested and:
b) Sent you a reply
letter on Monday Sept 25 detailing my actions and
asking
for clarification on other issues.
2) You called me in response to my Sept 25th letter on
Sept 26, asking that I
remove all mention of you and your firm even though such
was based on public
records.
a) I did as you requested and on Tuesday Sept 27th
you called again, now
asking that I remove all references to the RICO
action. You specifically stated
that the quote which I used from the RICO action was
defamatory as the basis for
your request.
3) I responded by removing the specific quote but
declining to remove all
references to the RICO action.
a) I offered to post your comments about the issue
which you have still not
accepted.
b) I offered to post the Neustel statement.
1) You accepted this compromise with
the condition that I reference the
quote in your letter
dated Sept 20th.
4) I posted the letter with a link to the quote and the
Neustel statement per
our discussion and sent you an
email informing you of same promptly on
completion.
a) You responded with the
email which I am now responding to saying that you
did not request this and renewing the demand that I
remove all mention of the
RICO action yet again.
Now I am really confused as to what it is you want.
The web site clearly states
that all letters received are subject to publication.
You sent me a letter and
a copy of the Neustel statement. You knew or should
have known that I would
publish both. We specifically discussed that you
preferred removal of the RICO
references but that publication of the other material
which you had supplied to
put those references in context was an acceptable
alternative.
What I am saying is that you are asking me to suppress
news of interest to the
independent inventor community and that for me to do so
there must be a
reasonable basis in law. I am really concerned that
I have been talked into
compromising basic journalist principles in an effort to
honor your requests (a
request made more urgent by a threat of
litigation). Please understand my
position and try not to over reach in an effort to stop
the publication of news
which is less than flattering to you or your client.
To resolve this once and for all please review the web
material as it exists
today, for I have already made many changes you have
asked for. Mark up each
page where you would like to see a change. Cite
exactly the basis in law for
each and every change you are requesting and why the
change should be made and
fax that material to (810) 655-8832. The material
will be forwarded to me and I
will do my best to address the points you raise.
And since you keep raising the issue of your client, Invention
Submission
Corporation, I also ask that if you have any issues
with the material on the web
site in regards to ISC that you do the same for those web
pages. I am always
ready to correct error of FACT.
If there are any errors please point them out
and cite the authority for your opinions. If there
are no problems then please
stop mentioning ISC since doing so, in light of the
number of people who have
received letters from Mr. Burger demanding that they not
discuss his business,
is in itself threatening.
It has crossed my mind that all this discussion about
material that mentions you
may well be an attempt to soften me up to get concessions
for your client. I
sincerely hope that is not the case for I thought that
your suggestion of a
meeting to discuss how ISC could improve it's
relationship with the inventor
community has merit.
Ronald J. Riley www.InventorEd.org/
----- Original Message -----
From: "Ronald J Riley" <rjriley@InventorEd.org>
To: "Lisa Reckner Miller" <Lisa@friedman-law.com>
Sent: Sunday, October 01, 2000 9:52 AM
Subject: Re: ISC & the Caution Pages
It is now Sunday and I have not received
a response from you as to suitable
times to set up the conference call with Mr. Levy.
Since it appears that you
may not respond until Monday please advise suitable times
for the call for
Tuesday and Wednesday.
As a courtesy I am also giving you advance notice that I
just wrote a news piece
concerning the fact that the Pennsylvania Office Of
Attorney General has just
opened
an investigation into the invention promotion
business.
We need to discuss how threats made by ISC against
critics cause them to
redirect their efforts. Frankly your client is much
better off to have critics
speaking out publicly where you know who they are and
what their concerns are.
As it is you are driving those critics underground.
I have reason to believe
that the Attorney General action is a direct result of
such threats.
I have to run now, since my wife thinks Sunday should be
all hers and she is not
happy I am taking time to write you.
Ronald J. Riley www.InventorEd.org/
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