Responding To The Slick Talking Scumbag Oliver Velez’s Cease & Desist Letter
Posted by Timothy Sykes on Wed 8th of Dec, 2010 08:30:03 AM timothysykes.com
Silver subscribers and TIMalert subscribers will remember the last time I received a cease & desist order, from big bad Shaquille’ O’Neal who didn’t much like me calling a company of which he was a compensated spokesman (just a few million shares), NXT Nutrtionals Holdings Inc. (NXTH) a blatant pump & dump…even though it was and I just did a post the other day on how that laughable carcass company has dropped 90%+ for the past year after the CEO publicly blamed me in 2009 on HuffPo for causing the drop from $3 to $2/share…never once talking about the multi-million dollar mailers that caused the 300%+ runup in the first place…subscribers of my 4 newsletters and I made $22,000+ taking profits waaaaay too quickly as the stock is now residing comfortably around 25 cents/share and Shaq is nowhere to be found (he had an out clause if the stock dropped below $1/share)
See our response to Shaq’s cease and desist to which we heard crickets despite my repeated attempts to get any kind of reply/apology.
So it gives me great honor to report that I have been served yet another cease & desist from another very questionable African-American (what is it with these guys…put Obama in charge and they think they can do anything???? Eassssy, I’m just kidding you uptight politically correct freaks) trading guru and owner of THIS, the single-worst reviewed educational product out of 9,000+ products on Investimonials, Mr. Oliver Velez.
Give this scumbag a well deserved round of middle fingers, he’s earned it.
Turns out Mr. Velez, or more likely some intern at his watchdog lawyers, didn’t much like THIS post I did on him or THIS one…which I wrote after I did a ton of research in response to a TIMalert subscriber having to cancel his membership because Oliver Velez’ prop shop Team Trading shut down its website and closed its doors literally overnight, leaving my friend Branko and dozens, if not hundreds, of others without any money in their trading accounts….sketchyyyyy
Immediately after receiving the cease & desist (it was delivered on November 17th, but my family and I were in Vegas for 2 weeks at the Vegas Expo & my surprisingly well received 18+ hour seminar) from Oliver Velez insisting I take down these posts (I’d repost it here but apparently C&D letters are copyrighted), I did a followup email with Branko to see if he’d gotten his money back…after all it’s been 8 months since that original post, surely Oliver Velez with a brand new company iFundTraders which was one of the main sponsors at this year’s Vegas Trading Expo (big $$$$) would have paid back his original prop firm customers, right?
This is Branko’s email convo with me (I edited out the bad words as the story makes the case without me having to deal with legal crap):
Timothy Sykes to BrankNov 29 (8 days ago)
hey man did u ever get your $ back from velez and them? do u know if others did?
Branko to Tim show details Nov 29 (8 days ago)
hey, no man we never got our money back and the whole thing is just a joke… Im in a group with 70 traders whos money got **** and I know that nobody has received their money… till today they have been posted around 3,000 emails in this group so every day we still stay in touch so Im up to date…around 500 traders got ******ed and around 1.5 – 2 mio. dollars got ****… and the funny thing is that both Velez and Vaccaro have new ventures and they are ******ing ppl again that makes me so mad because we filled sooo many complaines with the SEC and the NY AG and nothing happens…Vaccaro is earning money and ****ing ppl with Element trading his new venture and Velez with ifundtraders it should be called i****traders not ifundtraders… sorry for my language but it still makes me mad today…
Velez is holding meetings once or twice a months just for the ppl which he ****ed but this guy is full of **** and empty promises, he designed a release that he wanted us to sign: It says basically sign this release and you will get your money within one year;;)) what a joke… we told him to give us our money first and then we will sign anything but he said that is not an option… he thinks that we are a bunch of idiots…
*****
Thanks a lot for your effort!!!
Branko
Branko then got me the names and numbers of over two dozen Velez customers…so I will be calling each one of them up and seeing EXACTLY what the situation…it’s not my responsibility, not even close, Velez doesn’t even have a stock I can short, but I’m tired of seeing this happen again and again and it’s time we traders take a stand already. And I’m glad to be in a position to help organize these degenerate gamblers so they’re not just whining on useless trading websites like this that actually benefit from such group rants (yes another poor business model…ethically speaking).
So Oliver Velez & Crew, here’s my response to your cease & desist: read the lawyer language below and see why you have ABSOLUTELY no case or in short:
Go screw yourself, you just messed with the wrong short seller/justice seeker
I’m expecting a big fat Shaquille O’Neal-like no reply (what happened Shaq, I thought you were Superman…you can’t take a little Shaq vs. The Truth?) and that’ll be that…but I do hope Velez responds so that we can elevate this and his old customers might actually get some justice.
…c’mon Oliver, you wanna be a big man, the #1 trader of whatever you claim…..bring it onnnnnn you absolutely terrible excuse for a human being.
My lawyer says that in classier language:
RE:
Cease and Desist Letter to Timothy Sykes regarding Oliver Velez.
I serve as counsel to Timothy Sykes and Bullship Press LLC. As you know, on his blog
(http://www.timothysykes.com), Mr. Sykes has engaged in criticism of your client Mr.
Oliver Velez.
I write in response to your letter of November 17, 2010, sent on behalf of Mr. Velez
regarding Mr. Sykes’ blog. In your letter you allege that my client’s statements that “Mr.
Velez is a ‘scumbag,’ that he has ‘ripped off’ people, that he is a ‘freak,’ that he is a ‘slick-
talking scumbag,’ that he is ‘unethical,’ that he has been ‘polluting the trading industry,’
that he is a ‘perfect monster,’ and that he is ‘devious and straight out evil’” amount to
defamatory, libelous and disparaging public statements and you demand immediate removal
of the blog entries. You are hereby advised that Mr. Sykes will not be removing any content
from his blog as his blog entries contain only protected statements of opinion and fair
comment on a matter of public interest under the First Amendment of the United States
Constitution.
The right to speak guaranteed by the First Amendment includes the right to voice opinions,
criticize others, and comment on matters of public interest. After careful review of my
client’s blog entries, I was unable to find a single statement on Mr. Sykes’ blog that was
actionably defamatory. In order to sustain a cause of action for defamation, the plaintiff must
allege that there were false statements of fact (as opposed to statements of opinion like those
of Mr. Sykes), published to a third person, which caused damage to the plaintiff. Without
these essential elements, there is no defamation. See Dillon v. City of New York, 261 A.D.2d
34, 38 (N.Y.A.D. 1 Dept. 1999). In addition, it is clear that there has been no measurable
damage to your client from Mr. Sykes’ blog. Quite to the contrary, as you can see in the
comments to the blog as well as other content across the web, it appears that the general
opinion of Mr. Velez is overwhelmingly negative and that much of the public already had an
independent opinion that your client has been involved in unsavory activities. Accordingly,
your client’s reputation was not diminished by Mr. Sykes’ statements. In order to sustain
a claim for defamation, the plaintiff needs to show that even if there was an actionable
falsehood, the falsity of the statement must have caused injury to the plaintiff.
Consequently, far from being grounded in law, Mr. Velez’s complaint amounts to nothing
more than an attempt to silence an effective critic. Because those threats are legally
baseless, they should not have been made in the first place. They have, however, caused Mr.
Sykes harm and may continue to do so should they remain. In order to prevent any further
harm to Mr. Sykes, we demand that you retract them immediately and do so in the same way
the original claim was made: in a letter to Mr. Sykes and Bullship Press LLC, with a copy to
my office. Moreover, please be aware that further misrepresentation aimed at silencing Mr.
Sykes’ protected speech online may subject Mr. Velez to additional liability.
To reiterate, it is our position that a lawsuit based on these facts would be factually and
legally unsupportable. Accordingly, it would be my unfortunate duty to respond to any such
frivolous lawsuit with a motion for sanctions and a counterclaim for abuse of process; and
once the action is dismissed in his favor; my client will file a malicious prosecution claim.
Rather than governing our actions according to the demands in your letter, we will govern
them by the principle of murum aries attigit. To be clear, we will vigorously defend Mr.
Sykes against misguided efforts to limit his First Amendment rights.
Please direct all future communication regarding Mr. Sykes or Bullship Press to me at the
address appearing on this letter.
This letter is not intended to constitute a complete or exhaustive statement of all rights
and claims relating to this matter and is without prejudice to any of Mr. Sykes’ rights and
remedies, at law or in equity, all of which are specifically reserved.
Very truly yours,
Teresa F. Santos, Esq.
cc :
Timothy Sykes
Your move Oliver, how about spending some of your $ and paying back your old customers, did that thought ever cross your misguided mind? |
