Latona’s and TRAFFIC Over Planned Auction — Zuccarini Threatens
Court documents reveal that John Zuccarini has warned auctioneer and promoter of legal action if they go forward with auction.
On Monday I wrote regarding a proposed court order to sell John Zuccarini’s remaining domain names at October’s TRAFFIC conference to settle tax liens and a judgment in a cybersquatting case brought by Office Depot.
Now an attorney for the judgment creditor states that Zuccarini has contacted both Rick Latona and TRAFFIC organizers Rick Schwartz and Howard Neu, threatening legal action if they proceed with the auction.
Attorney Henry M. Burgoyne of Kronenberger Burgoyne, LLP filed an application for finding of contempt of court by Zuccarini for allegedly interfering with the auction plans. (Granted, the court hasn’t yet approved an order to sell the domains at TRAFFIC, so Burgoyne is apparently arguing that he’s interfering with the general plans to auction the domains.)
In the filing (pdf), Burgoyne reprints communications from Zuccarini to Rick Latona, Rick Schwartz, and Howard Neu, where he threatens legal action if they auction the domains while there are ongoing legal disputes. You may recall that Zuccarini has by now filed suit against NameJet, eNom, Network Solutions, and VeriSign for auctioning off some of his domains that a court-appointed receiver let expire.
Particularly interesting is a note from Zuccarini to lawyer Howard Neu, who actually represented Zuccarini early on following Office Depot brought its cybersquatting suit against him:
As you are aware, as you represented me when the Office Depot case was first filed in April 2000, and while your name is not present on the Pacer web site, you had make telephone contact with the attorney of record at that time for Office Depot in hopes of coming to a settlement, although that did not work out in the end.
You did as you may recall, as I checked the Pacer site today, on December 13, 2000 file an affidavit on my behave, although it was rejected by the Court, as you had forgotten to use lined numbered paper for the document. No doubt though that document is on file with the court.
In consideration of these circumstances, I believe it to be extremely unethical, for you to conduct and if not illegal, also completely unethical, for you to financially benefit from any auction of the domain names for
the Office Depot case.
We’ll see what the court has to say.
