November 7
Mississippi plaintiff Dr. Laurie Roth, motorcycle enthusiast, erstwhile presidential candidate and talk show host, wrote a letter to Judge Wingate in Mississippi in the case of Taitz v. Democrat Party of Mississippi, asking to be removed a plaintiff.
Roth, not having filed any documents in the case, nor to my knowledge even signed the “First amended complaint” that added her as a plaintiff, seemed to be just along for the ride as Orly Taitz, the lead plaintiff, attempted to purge the country of people who have slighted her. It’s not as simple as just asking, now that the Defense has responded to the complaint (and an Answer was filed 4/25/2012). The Defense can exact conditions, and one of the conditions they might exact is in the withdrawal letter itself, in the phrase:
I…have no intention of becoming a plaintiff in any other legal action against President Barack Obama.
Whether Roth is being candid with the court pleading medical problems and financial difficulty is no concern of mine, but it is rather odd-seeming that she didn’t include a doctor’s note to back up her claims.
November 25
A second plaintiff, Leah Lax, states in a filing docketed by the Court today that she sent an email on July 3 to Taitz asking that she be withdrawn as a plaintiff in the case, and says now that the continuing inclusion of her name on documents filed by Orly Taitz is “Fraud,” and noting that the phrase “pro se” is not present after Lax’s name on those filings. Since Orly Taitz was not representing Lax, it is unclear why Lax asked Taitz to remove her as a Plaintiff in the case, rather than asking the Court to do this (I could find nothing in the record of Lax filing anything with the court in July). In the December 6, 2011, engagement letter between the two it was made clear that Lax was not being represented by Taitz in states where Taitz was not admitted to practice, but was in California and states where Taitz was admitted pro hac vice.
Lax contends that it was never her intent to be part of the RICCO (sic) case against Obama (the First amended complaint in Mississippi where Lax was added as as a Plaintiff). However, in the engagement letter, Lax stated that she would be a co-plaintiff or represented by Taitz in all filings against Obama in all 50 states. Lax alleges that she didn’t sign the Mississippi complaint, but that Taitz “pasted her signature” on it. I note that the Mississippi complaint was not signed by Lax at all, only marked with “/s/”.
Lax also contends that Taitz made medical information about Lax public in violation of the Health Insurance Portability and and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA). That last charge is bogus because Lax is not a patient of Orly Taitz and so HIPAA doesn’t apply1; however, even though Taitz was not representing Lax in Mississippi, she was in other states, and this disclosure, if it occurred, could well be a violation of attorney-client confidentiality.
Like Orly Taitz, Lax is angry with commenters at the Fogbow for making fun of her. Lax seems to be confused, believing that Mississippi attorney Sam Begley is a member of the Fogbow forum and can tell folks there to be nice; Begley, to my knowledge, does not have a Fogbow account. In what may be a case of libel per se, Lax identifies a particular on-line screen name, SueDB, who posts here and at the Fogbow as the hacker and “identity thief” and says “her IP address matches the person who allegedly broke into my e commerce account.” It would seem that this IP address match is not actually based on evidence, but upon belief. Lax perhaps gives a hint to the reason for her interest in anti-Obama litigation when she accuses, in another email filed with the court, that the Fogbow members “consist of all Muslims.”
Lax asks for unspecified sanctions against Taitz for using her name in court filings after July 3. She also intends to press charges against whoever hacked her email account and sent out porn to her contact list, although the connection of this allegation to the Mississippi lawsuit is unclear. Read the Lax motion:
Donald Trump is a well-known birther, who doubled down with a highly-publicized pre-election offer to donate $5 million to charity if Obama released some college records that likely don’t still exist. Whether universally true or not, birtherism is associated with racism in much of the public mind, and Donald Trump’s birther antics triggered a grass roots effort to remove Trump-labeled merchandise from Macy’s department stores. Macy’s is standing by Trump who frequently appears in its advertising, even though a “
