Litigation

Minkow Anti-SLAPP motion filed in Medifast case

By Tracy Coenen

The Medifast Inc. litigation over its multi-level marketing division Take Shape For Life (TSFL), and the criticism of it by me, Barry Minkow, Fraud Discovery Institute, William Lobdell, Robert FitzPatrick, and an anonymous message board poster who referred to the company’s board chairman Bradley McDonald as “Pimp Daddy Brad” marches on.

About a week ago, Robert FitzPatrick and I filed our anti-SLAPP motions with the court. This week Barry Minkow and Fraud Discovery Institute filed their anti-SLAPP motion with the court.

Medifast seems to be getting nervous and desperate. Their lawyers have been shamelessly lying to the court, and are trying all sorts of neat tricks to stall the anti-SLAPP motions. They now claim that they need all sorts of discovery done before they can reply to the anti-SLAPP motions.

The one curious thing that Medifast hasn’t done, is they haven’t pointed out even one false statement by any of the defendants. Their entire defamation case is based on supposed false statements by all of us. And Medifast would be in sole possession of the proof of the falsehood of our statements, yet they haven’t bothered to mention even one of these false statements. They’ve been saying for over a year that we’re lying about TSFL, but haven’t come forth with even one example.

I have plenty more to say about Medifast, their business model, and their litigation tactics. Unfortunately, due to the lawsuit pending, the less I say, the better. Even in a free country, it appears that the First Amendment rights of people can be trampled by corporate bullies like Medifast who will sue those who dare to challenge them.

If they’re so sure of their claims… and if we’ve told lies about them… and if they can prove it… why not proceed with the anti-SLAPP motions? Probably because the longer Medifast can drag this out and the more they cost the defendants in legal fees, the better their chances of shutting us up (and also shutting up any other citizen who dares to challenge the validity of the multi-level marketing business model).

Full post as published by The FRAUDfiles Blog on May 07, 2010 (boomark / email).