The Volokh Conspiracy
Mostly law professors | Sometimes contrarian | Often libertarian | Always independent
9 Months in Prison for Forging Court Orders Aimed at Vanishing Online Material
"Arnstein ... submitted the counterfeit orders, which appeared to be valid on their face, to Google and requested that Google de-index the websites containing the purportedly defamatory information."
From a Justice Department press release put out last Friday, about a case you may have seen discussed here and here:
Michael Arnstein was sentenced today to nine months in prison for conspiring to forge a federal judge's signature on counterfeit court orders that Arnstein submitted to Google to get negative reviews about his business removed from Google search results. Arnstein pled guilty on September 15, 2017, before U.S. District Court Judge Andrew L. Carter Jr., who imposed today's sentence.
Manhattan U.S. Attorney Geoffrey S. Berman said: "Michael Arnstein's blatant criminal scheme to exploit the authority of the federal judiciary for his company's benefit was outrageous. As Arnstein has learned, his attempts to remove negative reviews about his business from Google search results by forging a U.S. District Court judge's signature may have worked in the short term, but it also earned him nine months in a federal prison."
According to the allegations contained in the Complaint, the felony Information to which Arnstein pled guilty, and statements made during court proceedings:
Between February 2014 and February 2017, Arnstein engaged in a scheme to submit counterfeit federal court orders to Google, Inc. ("Google") in an effort to get websites containing unfavorable postings about Arnstein's business de-indexed from Google's internet search results. In furtherance of this scheme, Arnstein and others forged the signature of a United States District Judge for the Southern District of New York on more than 10 counterfeit court orders. These counterfeit orders listed the websites containing purportedly defamatory information about Arnstein's business and ordered the removal of such information from the websites. Arnstein then submitted the counterfeit orders, which appeared to be valid on their face, to Google and requested that Google de-index the websites containing the purportedly defamatory information.
* * *In addition to the prison term, Arnstein, 41, of Yonkers, New York, was sentenced to three years of supervised release, the first five months of which Arnstein must serve in home detention. Arnstein was also ordered to pay a fine of $20,000 and to perform 200 hours of community service during his term of supervised release.
Mr. Berman praised the outstanding investigative work of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the United States Marshals Service. He also thanked Google for its helpful assistance in this investigation.
The prosecution of this case is being overseen by the Office's Complex Frauds and Cybercrime Unit. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Sheb Swett and Daniel S. Noble are in charge of the prosecution.
Here's an excerpt from an e-mail from Arnstein mentioned in the criminal complaint:
[N]o bullshit: if I could do it all over again I would have found another court order injunction for removal of links (probably something that can be found online pretty easily) made changes in photoshop to show the links that I wanted removed and then sent to 'removals@google.com' as a pdf - showing the court order docket number, the judges [sic] signature - but with the new links put in. google isn't checking this stuff; that's the bottom line b/c I spent $30,000 fuckin thousand dollars and nearly 2 fuckin years to do what legit could have been done for about 6 hours of searching and photoshop by a guy for $200., all in ONE DAY ….
I should note that the Lumen Database was also instrumental in the prosecution.
