
Miami New Times- A South Beach lawyer was charged yesterday with operating a massive porn-blackmail scheme, in which he and his cohorts would make their own porn then upload it onto the internet in places they knew it would be illegally downloaded. The feds say that lawyer, John Steele, and his team would then wait for someone to download that porn, and then blackmail them into forking over wads of cash, lest Steele reveal the victim’s porn-watching history to the world.
According to a federal indictment filed yesterday, Steele — a Minnesota native with a name that sounds suspiciously like a male porn star’s — made $6 million from the scheme, working in tandem with his University of Minnesota classmate, Paul Hansmeier.
Steele was arrested in Fort Lauderdale earlier today, according to the Minneapolis Star-Tribune. In November 2011, he opened a branch of his law firm, Prenda Law, on 1111 Lincoln Road in Miami Beach.
“Between 2011 and 2014, defendants Paul R. Hansmeier and John L. Steele orchestrated an elaborate scheme to fraudulently obtain millions of dollars in copyright lawsuit settlements by deceiving state and federal courts throughout the country,” the indictment says. “In order to carry out the scheme, the defendants used sham entities to obtain copyrights to pornographic movies — some of which they filmed themselves — and then uploaded those movies to file-sharing websites in order to lure people to download the movies.”
First things first, I gotta see this porno. Gotta know this Lawyer’s dick game. It could arguably determine the outcome of his trial. Lawyers are cocky aggressive types. If he slays he’ll probably pay a minor fine. If he has no power in his hips, he might as well be a laughing stock at the next lawyer convention while prepping to retake the bar since this scheme is something out of a weird straight to DVD movie. Is it ridiculous? Absolutely. Do I hate the idea though? Not as much as I should for a failed plan. Sure it lead to his arrest but I feel like law enforcement does this all the time. Like when they set up a sting operation to catch hookers and johns except with a bit of a twist in that it’s a lawyer leaking his own porno and extorting people for millions. Not even gonna hate on his pick up game though. Such a brilliant pick up line. “Hey honey, lets fuck so we can leak the video on line so when people illegally download it, we can blackmail them for millions.” Sex and money, no chick can turn that down. And we’re not talking like small amount either. 6 MILLION. That’s definitely more than amateur porn stars make. Plus it’s advice from a lawyer which almost 100% of the time means it’s legit. Such a porn star name too “John Steele.” Obviously the legal profession isn’t made for him, but Porn is definitely a possible career path for this guy.