“Thou Shalt Not Steal.” Exodus 20:15

The US Court System isn’t always fair, but this time, justice has been served and a bully has been punished.  The “firm” of Block, Lobkowicz & Bonobos has won another case:  our lawsuit against Kelly Shibari/Margaret Miles (heretofore referred to as “Kelly”) for stealing and deleting various important proprietary documents, lists and emails just before she left her position as producer of The Dr. Susan Block Show.

Though we feel grateful and vindicated for our victory, we are not rejoicing to see a fellow member of the sex-positive community so judiciously exposed.  We tried everything we could to communicate “the old-fashioned” way with Kelly—through numerous phone calls, emails, texts and mutual colleagues—before this went to trial, to get her to return our stolen documents , help reconstruct the ones she deleted or just talk to us about what happened. When all we got was the proverbial “cold shoulder” from this individual we had so warmly welcomed into our community for nine months, we sought recompense in the U.S. Court System and, thankfully, we got it.

This being small claims court, we were not represented by attorneys, but we had our timeline, witness statements and evidence in order.  The Honorable Robert S. Harrison read through our documents and hers for about 10 minutes, and then asked us very few questions, focusing 80% of his inquiries on Kelly.

Since there was no court transcription, the following is based upon our recollection.  Kelly’s main defense seemed to be that she didn’t delete *as much* as we said she deleted, and besides, she figured we probably have copies of almost everything she deleted in other accounts or on other computers or “somewhere,” so why did it matter?  When she said that, Commissioner Harrison looked her in the eye and asked pointblank, “Why did you delete ANYTHING?”  When she didn’t answer, he asked again and added, “Were you angry?” to which she replied very quietly, “No.”  Then he asked her, “Did you do this on your computer or their computer?”  To which she responded even more quietly, “Theirs.”

That seemed to clinch things, since deleting anything from someone else’s computer without their express permission is illegal, not to mention downright nasty, and Commissioner Harrison didn’t ask many questions after that.  This was a bit frustrating as we had a LOT to say!  But our past experience in court tells us that if the judge or commissioner is on your side, he doesn’t ask you much; he directs his questions at your opponent whom he suspects of wrongdoing.  So he does *let* them talk more, which is great in radio but bad in court, as it tends to mean he is leading you into hanging yourself with your own words.  And that’s exactly what Kelly did.

Kelly’s countersuit against us for harassment and extortion was thrown out.  Commissioner Harrison asked her a few questions about it and didn’t ask us anything.  Basically, her main gripe was that we used her real name as well as her porn name in both court documents and this blog.  This is not illegal in any way and, as Commissioner Harrison understood, we needed to use her real name for court documents (which are public records) and because that’s the name to whom we made out her checks.  We needed to use her porn name as well, since that’s the name she used as our former show producer and member of the Speakeasy community.

Again, we do not glory in this victory.  The various threats we have received from Kelly, her boyfriend Timothy Rowland, aka Tim Von Swine, and other associate thugs have been unnerving, to say the least (and though we just missed getting restraining orders against them by five minutes due to waiting in an unusually long line to get into the courthouse, we’re prepared to re-file if they threaten us again).  The money that Kelly has been ordered by the court to pay us barely covers the damages she inflicted on us through her theft and vandalism, let alone the costs of mounting the suit.

Nevertheless, at least, she didn’t “get away with it,” and we hope that she learns something from this.  We certainly have.  We learned that although it may be tough, tedious, nerve-wracking and scary to defend yourself against vandalism and thievery, in the end, sometimes, you are rewarded with a juicy blowjob of justice from the mighty mouth of the U.S. Court System.