Varian has spent almost 2 years maliciously prosecuting me:
Here are Varian's false allegations as stated in their Third Amended Complaint against the defendants:
"...DEFENDANT'S WRONGFUL CONDUCT ON THE INTERNET
25. Plaintiffs are informed and believe, and on that basis allege, that commencing immediately after Delfino's termination from Varian Associates, defendants began a pattern of unlawful conduct described below and which is the subject of this Complaint.
26. Plaintiffs are informed and believe, and on that basis allege, that defendants have committed a variety of wrongful conduct. This conduct, includes but is not limited to, the actions by defendants in impersonating various Varian employees, including but not limited to, Susan Felch, George Zdasiuk, Dick Aurelio, Jane Crisler, and others, and posting on various Internet web pages emails allegedly from the impersonated Varian employeees, which contain false and defamatory statements. In addition, defendants have defamed both Varian Associates and its employees through a variety of false allegations, including by contentions that employees 'cause some trouble,' that nobody at Varian Associates 'is working,' that Varian employees are having affairs with other employees and executives, that Varian employees are engaged in projects that waste money, and that Varian Associates has engaged in actions including, but not limited to 'corporate rape.'
27. Defendants have published on the Internet numerous emails regarding Susan Felch. In many cases, defendants have impersonated Felch by posting emails that appear to be authored by Felch but were in fact authored by defendants. In addition to the wrongful appropriation of Felch's name, the contents of the emails are defamatory and invade Felch's privacy in several different ways. The emails that falsely show Felch as the author contain the following statements, among others:
28. In addition to the emails in which defendants impersonate Felch, defendants have also published on the Internet numerous additional emails in which defendants have defamed Felch and invaded her privacy. In these additional wrongful emails, defendants have either (a) impersonated other Varian employees by giving the emails the appearance of having been authored by such other Varian employees, or (b) posted the emails under aliases (such as 'go_get_help,' 'ah_michelangelo,' and 'aronaldo') such that the true authors of the emails cannot be determined without obtaining information from the operators of the Internet web site pursuant to subpoena. Examples of statements in these additional emails are:
29. Defendants have published on the Internet numerous messages regarding George Zdasiuk. Defendants have impersonated Zdasiuk by posting messages which appear to be authored by Zdasiuk but which are in fact authored by defendants. In addition to the wrongful appropriation of Zdasiuk's name, the contents of the messages are defamatory of Zdasiuk and invade Zdasiuk's privacy in several ways. Examples of messages that falsely show Zdasiuk as the author are:
30. In addition to the emails in which defendants impersonate Zdasiuk, defendants have also published on the Internet numerous additional emails in which defendants have defamed Zdasiuk and invaded his privacy. In these additional wrongful emails, defendants have either (a) impersonated other Varian employees by giving the emails the appearance of having been authored by such other Varian employees, or (b) posted thev emails under aliases (such as 'ah_michelangelo,' 'go_get_help,' and 'manuforte') Examples of statements in these additional emails include:
31. Defendants have published on the Internet numerous emails in which defendants have defamed Varian Associates and engaged in unfair competition. Defendants' emails regarding Varian Associates are part of a scheme to harm Varian Associates and its successors-in-interest, including Varian Medical and Varian Semiconductor, by falsely portraying Varian Associates as poorly managed, having employees with no work to do because the company's business is deteriorating, having overpriced stock, and having quality problems with its products. Defendants have furthered this scheme by posting on the Internet a slew of emails which are not only defamatory and unfair, but in which defendants impersonate Varian managers and employees so as to give the impression that the defamatory and unfair representations are based on knowledge of highly-placed Varian employees and that these extremely negative views are widely held throughout Varian. Defendants have also furthered this scheme by posting on the Internet numerous emails authored by aliases such as 'manuforte,' 'aronaldo,' 'go_get_help,' 'gino_in_torino,' 'dick_et_al,' 'halperthal,' 'jane_crisco,' and 'ah_michelangelo,' and having these aliases respond to each other on the Internet, thereby creating the impression that there is a multitude of people who have inside information about Varian which reflects badly on Varian's business and which could drive down Varian's stock price. In addition to defaming Varian Associates and being unfair, this scheme is likely to deceive consumers, stockholders, and potential consumers and stockholders regarding Varian Associates and its successors-in-interest, including Varian Medical and Varian semiconductor, as well as their products and their stock.
32. In addition to the messages discussed above regarding Felch and Zdasiuk - which also reflect poorly on Varian Associates and its successors-in-interest, including Varian Medical and Varian Semiconductor -- examples of the messages that defendants have published on the Internet regarding Varian Associates include:
33. Many of the messages described above were posted on the Yahoo! Inc. message board for Varian Associates, Inc. To post a message on this board, a user must sign up for 'Yahoo! Chat,' which entails agreeing to the terms of a service agreement. Plaintiffs allege, on information and belief, that defendants read the service agreement and agreed to its terms before posting any messages on the Yahoo! message board for Varian Associates, Inc. The terms of the service agreement include, but are not limited to, the following:
a. "Yahoo Chat currently is provided as a free service to users who agree to abide by the terms and conditions of this Agreement."
b. "ENTERING A CHAT ROOM OF YAHOO CHAT WILL CONSTITUTE ACCEPTANCE OF THE TERMS AND CONDITIONS OF THIS AGREEMENT. IF YOU DO NOT AGREE TO ABIDE BY THESE TERMS, PLEASE DO NOT ENTER YAHOO CHAT."
c. You agree not to do any of the following actions while using Yahoo Chat:
(1) harass, threaten, embarass or cause distress or discomfort upon another Yahoo Chat participant, user, or other individual or entity;
(2) transmit via Yahoo Chat any information, data, text, files, links, software, chat, communication or other materials ('Content') that Yahoo considers to be unlawful, harmful, threatening, abusive, harassing, defamatory, vulgar, obscene, hateful, racially, ethnically or otherwise objectionable;
....
(4) impersonate in Yahoo Chat any person, including but not limited to, a Yahoo official, forum leader, guide or host;
....
(7)intentionally or unintentionally violate any applicable local, state, national or international law, including but not limited to any regulations having the force of law while using or accessing Yahoo Chat or in connection with your use of Yahoo Chat in any manner.
34. One of defendants' objectives in posting the messages has been to drive down the stock price of Varian Associates, Varian Medical, and Varian Semiconductor. This is evidenced by the fact that defendants have posted all of the messages on stock-related Internet sites, and defendants have specifically stated in several of the messages that Varian Associates' stock is extremely overvalued and that readers should sell their Varian Associates stock.
35. Another of defendants' objectives has been to cause personal distress to the Varian managers who were directly responsible for the termination of Delfino's employment with Varian, including but not limited to Felch and Zdasiuk.
36. Defendants' intent in making such allegations is to defame and harm Plaintiffs and various Varian employees, as well as to harm the price of Varian securities. Furthermore, by appropriating the identity of various Varian employees including Felch, and posting messages attributed to persons other than the sender, defendants have wrongly appropriated the identities of individuals.
37. Plaintiffs have been damaged by defendants' wrongful conduct, as described above. Plaintiffs' injury will be much greater -- irreparable -- if defendants are permitted to continue their wrongful conduct.
DEFENDANTS' CONTINUED UNLAWFUL CONDUCT AFTER THE FILING OF THIS LAWSUIT AND THE ISSUANCE OF A TRO
38. Plaintiffs initially filed this lawsuit in the Superior Court for the County of Santa Clara on February 26, 1999. On that date, the Superior Court issued a Temporary Restraining Order ('TRO') prohibiting Delfino from, inter alia, impersonating other persons on the Internet, using more than one alias to post Internet messages relating to Plaintiffs, defaming Plaintiffs in Internet messages, and disposing of his computer equipment.
39. On February 25, 1999, one day prior to filing the complaint, Plaintiffs notified Delfino by telephone and hand-delivered letter that they intended to file a complaint and seek the TRO the following day. The notice described the nature of the complaint and the requested relief.
40. On or about February 25 or 26, 1999, after Delfino was received the notice described in the previous paragraph, Day disposed of her used Apple Performa. On information and belief, Day disposed of her used Apple Performa with knowledge of the complaint and the TRO application in this case and with the intent to destroy evidence showing Day's and Delfino's responsibility for the Internet messages at issue in this lawsuit.
41. By reason of subsequent orders entered by the Santa Clara County Superior Court and this Court, the TRO remained in effect continuously until the Court issued a preliminary injunction on June 21, 1999.
42. Following the issuance of the TRO, defendants have posted at least eight messages on the internet under several aliases in which defendants continue to defame, harass, and impersonate Plaintiffs and related persons in direct violation of the TRO. These messages include the following:
DEFENDANTS' CONTINUED DEFAMATORY POSTINGS AFTER THE FILING OF THIS SECOND AMENDED COMPLAINT
43. Following the filing of the Second Amended complaint in this action, defendants have posted, by their own admission, more than one thousand messages relating to this action. In many of these messages the defendants continue to defame and harass Plaintiffs, Plaintiffs' counsel, and other persons whose names have arisen as potential witnesses against defendants, including but not limited to Joseph Phair, Jim Fair, Ron Powell, Jane Crisler, Craig Moro, Jeff Wright, Kathy Hibbs, Dick Levy, Dick Aurelio, and others. In these messages, defendants have defamed Plaintiffs in new ways, such as by insinuating (i) that George Zdasiuk is homophobic; (ii) that Plaintiffs have videotaped persons in company bathrooms, going to the bathroom, using the bathroom, or engaging in private activities in the bathroom, or have otherwise invaded the privacy of persons in the bathroom, (iii) the Plaintiffs are bullies, fasicsts, tyrants, or seek to oppress free speech, or that this is a SLAPP lawsuit, (iv) that Plaintiffs destroyed or tampered with evidence, (v) that Susan Felch sabotaged a laboratory, (vi) that Susan Felch is 'scary' or has violent tendencies, and (vii) that George Zdasiuk would not have hired a woman employee if he had known she was pregnant. ..."
geocities.com
And yet, the defendants have beaten the despicable Varian (VAR & VSEA), Susan B. Felch & George Zdasiuk plaintiffs in court after court.
Damages? You bet! |
