On March 16, 2023, the Michigan Court of Appeals rejected in total Maritas’ appeal of the December 2021 jury verdict against him for more than $500,000. While it took 16 pages, the Court easily discarded every argument Maritas put forth. A link to the Order is below.
Highlights:
- The Court rejected wholesale Maritas’ attempts to get out of his responsibilities under the terms of the written settlement agreement to which he previously agreed.
- Each of Maritas’ 7 broad claims of reasons to overturn the jury verdict were rejected. Every one of Maritas’ multiple assertions within those broad claims were rejected.
- The Court enforced the multiple times the trail court-imposed money sanctions against Maritas.
- The Court rejected Maritas’ remarkable claim that the website content that he admitted posting that form the basis for the lawsuit should not have been shown to the jury as they were “unfairly prejudicial” to him. The truth was unfairly prejudicial? Rather, in rejecting this ridiculous claim the Court held that the postings “disparaging plaintiff’s members or insinuating criminal activity” were exactly what the jury should consider.
- In addition to upholding the more than $500,000 judgment (that continues to grow with interest), and to “avoid injustice,” the Court ordered specific performance of the Agreement, including the entry of an Order that Maritas immediately transfer ownership to the SPFPA of domain names and social media accounts and further “[r]emove all websites under his control containing Plaintiff’s name or acronym.”
- As Maritas did not prevail in any of his claims, the Court ordered that Maritas must pay the SPFPA’s costs for the appeal.
For more than a year Maritas has claimed that he would prevail in the appeal and the $500,000 plus judgment against him would be dismissed. Once again, he is wrong on all accounts. How much LEOSU dues money did Maritas spend on defending himself with this frivolous appeal? How much will he now spend to pay the SPFPA’s costs he personally is now required to pay?
CLICK HERE FOR THE ORDER
Next up: We expect very soon the forensic expert’s report to the federal court in the SPFPA’s pending federal lawsuit against Maritas and LEOSU. The Court has already ruled that Maritas and LEOSU intentionally destroyed copious amounts of relevant evidence in the case and upon receipt of the forensic expert’s report, the federal judge will determine the sanctions to be imposed against them. We anticipate those to be significant. Keep watching this site, we will post when it issues.
