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The Pelican Briefs - You're the fraudster! No, *you* are!

By Pamela Jones et al.

The first answer has been filed in the litigation Pelican Equity recently initiated against Robert Brazell, Stephen Norris, Talos Partners, Rama Ramachandran, Darl McBride, and Bryan Cave. The other answers were due on the 19th or in one case on the 17th, but this is the first one to show up on PACER. Pelican Equity is essentially Mark Robbins, from the perspective of us SCO watchers. At the July 27th hearing, his name came up. Remember the guy Darl McBride testified he'd loaned $200,000 to and never got paid back in full? Same guy.

This answer is from Mr. Brazell, Mr. Norris, Talos Partners, and Mr. Ramachandran. Mr. Norris is, of course, the gentleman who signed the unXis-SCO agreement that died aborning. The judge ruled that it seemed to lack the hallmarks of a real deal.

I confess I don't know what to write about this icky case. I guess the best way to handle it is to let it speak for itself. The complaint, alleges the following:

NATURE OF THIS ACTION 1. This action arises out of the defendants' theft of extremely valuable trade secrets, breaches of the fiduciary duties owed by business partners and company employees pursuant to written agreements, misappropriation and unfair competition, violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, malpractice by a major international law firm, and fraud and deceit.

But this answer [PDF] in effect says, "No, you're the fraudster; you're the con artist". In fact, it goes farther and claims the litigation itself is part of the con.

I must caution that we have no way to know who, if anyone, is telling the truth. Sometimes people do file lawsuits with ulterior motives, after all, and sometimes the motives are to smear victims, because you can say things in court documents without, usually, being sued for libel, so there are those who take advantage of that. So as far as Groklaw is concerned, we have no position. This is included here just to complete the picture. It's happening. It's part of the SCO story. The complaint was handed to the judge at the last SCO bankruptcy hearing, and there was some testimony regarding the plaintiff on the part of both Darl McBride and Steven Norris, so it's part of the SCO story, and since 2003 Groklaw has covered every SCO event so as to have a complete historical record. In that context then, I'll just let you read them for yourselves.

Full post as published by Groklaw on August 20, 2009 (boomark / email).