Message to Project Backers

One of the oddest misconceptions about this case is the widespread assumption that Agness had something – anything – to do with John's problems in Japan. In this message to project backers, Agness dispels that misconception, and tries to convey some of the stupefying injustice she has faced over the last year and a half.

FAQ Part II: One year later

Legally, things are now proceeding on multiple fronts. We'll update everyone when counsel gives us the greenlight.

Today, we wanted to answer publicly some of the questions that have come to us privately over the last year. We will also append this content to our Joint Public Statement from April 2014.

FAQ Part II

(June 17, 2015)

What is this site and why should we care?

The VersusJS blog provides coverage of our lawsuit against John Szczepaniak, who for the past 18 months has conducted a campaign of defamation and endangerment against Agness Kaku, Hanako Abe, and their families. The case is interesting for a number of reasons, but unless you're involved personally, as a backer of John's Kickstarter project or as a victim of John's past behaviour, you have little reason to care.

Aren't you supposed to keep quiet about court cases?

We needed a bulwark against John’s mounting libel, so we asked our lawyer if a blog providing factual information about the case would be acceptable. He said it would be fine.

If John has no money, what good is suing him?

Without a verdict, we cannot compel Kickstarter to remove the libelous content from public view, or even to enforce their own policy against personal attacks. Our requests for help from Kickstarter have been consistently ignored.

What if you never get a verdict?

If we get no justice from the courts, we can at least prevent John from ever doing this again, to anyone. That’s a pure good, and enough to keep us fighting.

Why didn't Hanako just pay John the disputed $150 booking fee?

To do so would have implied wrongdoing. Had she some sort of guarantee that John would desist from false claims, Hanako would gladly have paid John $150 out of pocket. She had no such guarantee, and John had already destroyed whatever trust she placed in him at the beginning of the project.

If this is between John and Hanako, why is John attacking Agness?

The short answer is that John really, really hates Agness.

Prior to John's attacks, the history of interaction between John and Agness consisted entirely of John asking for favours, and Agness granting them. The last favour Agness granted was giving him Hanako's personal contact info, so that he could consult her directly. Six months later, John throws Hanako and her colleagues under the bus, and includes Agness purely out of spite.

So, you did nothing wrong?

We did absolutely nothing wrong, but the real kicker is that Hanako bent over backwards to help John, and for very little pay. She even gave half of her proceeds to another Kickstarter project as a sign of good faith to John's backers. (John promptly removed all mention of this fact from project comments, and has since refund-banned any backer who challenges his version of events.)

Do we have regrets? Yes. Hanako regrets that she continued to ask John for things when she should have demanded them. Agness regrets granting John's request to interview her in 2011.

Isn't this just "he said, she said"?

No, it really isn't. If you want a formula, it’s more like he lied, then he lied again, then he lied a third time, and then she sued. People who say this is a case of "he said, she said" are being lazy, and they are helping the libeler do his damage. If you must form an opinion, please look at the evidence, ask us questions, and then decide for yourself one way or the other. If you can't do that, then don't spread the damage through indiscriminate gossip.

Have you tried contacting John’s parents?

Yes, just before the initial hearing, we sent this letter via registered mail. We did not expect a reply, but we did hope that John’s parents would take positive action.

Have you thought about trying ... ?

Yes, we have thought about getting more press attention, moving the debate to youtube, filing a police complaint (especially after John's outreach to #gamergate), and several other courses of action. All options remain on the table.

What’s your gut feeling about the case?

Our feeling is that John’s behaviour will only improve when he has been forced to take responsibility for his failures. We also feel that the time is ripe for someone to make a real stand against online trolls and their enablers.

Trial: Redux

Good news! The Court of Niort's decision regarding jurisdiction has been successfully appealed and the trial has been moved to the Court of Poitiers, where, we are told, the entire case will be heard once again, including all of John's libel from 2014-15. We are also initiating legal action in the UK, so as to cut off further avenues of escape. We will have to wait another four months for the new trial, but this time around, there should be no delays by opposing counsel.

Never stop fighting until the fight is done.

Intermission

The French Court has returned our bond and declared that legal action against John Szczepaniak should take place in the UK. Behind the court's decision is John's testimony that he was and is a resident of the UK, and therefore bears the burden of liability in that country. Fortunately for us, John's trial delays in France were not enough to outlast the statute of limitations for libel in the UK.

Stay tuned. This may be a larger case than we expected.

Verdict

Because the court could not sufficiently establish John's residency in France, it has decided that the case is outside its jurisdiction. Dismissed. Why was this not decided at the consignation in June? Why did we have to endure two trial delays by opposing counsel, only to have him argue that John is not a resident after all, so none of this matters? Awful. Just awful.

We still don't know whether the court has issued a ruling on the libel itself. I will post again once we have a fuller understanding of the decision.

Verdict expected this week...

I will post another update once we have received and understood the court's decision.

Over the last several days, I have debated whether a review of John’s libel, stretching from late 2013 to the present, would be a useful addition to this blog. Yes, it would help to trace the trajectory of John’s behaviour, as it veered from peevish self-deception into purely malicious invention (and more recently, grandiose paranoia), but would it lead to a better outcome? Not really. We are only days away from a verdict, and if we get the verdict we deserve, our next task will be to leave John Szczepaniak in our rear-view mirror. A more thorough audit of John’s libel might be necessary at some point. Right now, it just feels counterproductive.

As always, I am happy to answer questions about the case via linkedIn.

Trial Update #5

Well, the hearing is over. Opposing counsel pulled some last-minute shenanigans (introducing a technical argument just days before the hearing), but the key evidence has now been submitted to the court for deliberation. We must now wait until April 9th for a decision. Obviously it is frustrating to wait so long for closure, especially with John continuing to lie about us over the nine months since the initial consignation. Nevertheless, it is good to have an end in sight.

We want to thank everyone who has maintained an interest in the case, even as it has dragged on these many months. It may not be a big case, but it is certainly an odd one – and an important one for the parties involved.

Please stay tuned. We will make one more post prior to the verdict, and at least one post after the verdict.

Case Overview

If you are unfamiliar with our libel case against John Szczepaniak, please see our Joint Statement from last Spring.

If you have a little more time on your hands, you should also take a look at the Chronology of Events and the Message Archive.

Trial Update #4

For those of you still paying attention...we held off announcing the new trial date because we figured John's lawyer would try for another delay. And that's exactly what he's done -- this time based on an even flimsier pretext. Our lawyer has submitted a letter of protest, but it looks like nothing is going to happen until after the holiday season.

It's clear that John is trying to run away from a verdict, but we have reason to believe that the court's patience is now exhausted, and that we will get our verdict in February.

Trial Update #3

We've just learned that the new trial date will be in November. We're told that this is not all that bad a delay, and that in larger cities, opposing counsel can buy as many as four or five additional months in this manner. So, another two months it is. The specific date has yet to be announced...

Wow. John just made an update...

Read it here.

*headshake*

This is not good. John is now lying indiscriminately about court proceedings. I fear this will end badly for him.

Trial Update #2

Having waited nine months to clear our names in court, we now learn that John's lawyer is using delay tactics to push the trial date further out. He claims that he has not received all relevant documents from our lawyer (a problem he could easily have fixed over the last three months). The court has granted a reprieve of one month, and will name a revised trial date sometime soon.

This is disappointing, but not too surprising. John's lawyer has been slow-walking the case from the very beginning.

So we wait. Another month of living with John's libel. At the very least, it will give us time to present more of the evidence against John, including some items not likely to be presented in court. Stay tuned.

Complete Message Archive

You can now access the complete archive of our correspondence with John Szczepaniak over the period in question. The archive is split into 5 tabulated sheets:

• Email between John and Hanako
• SMS between John and Hanako
• Email between John and Agness
• SMS between John and Agness
• Kickstarter messages between John and Peter

Note that each row containing a message from John is highlighted in pink. Also note that we have chosen to leave out supplementary tagging and indexing for the time being. Although there are a number of messages that deserve special attention, we felt it was best to provide unchannelled access as a first step.

There are still some artifacts from importing an Excel file into Google Spreadsheet. We are in the process of cleaning those up. Also, because the messages were manually extracted into Excel after using Gmail's "forward thread" function, then scrubbed of personal information, there is more room for error than we'd like. If a message appears to refer to another email that cannot be found in the archives, please contact us with the details.

Chronology of Events

For your perusal: a Chronology of Events leading up to our libel suit against John. This should help interested parties navigate the archive of emails and messages we will be publishing.

Trial Update

The initial consignation is now over and the case will be decided on September 11th, followed by a final verdict within two weeks of that date. In the meantime, we will publish a timeline of events relevant to the case, followed by phased publication of all messages exchanged with John, in chronological order. There is a lot of tedium in purging personal information from these messages, so it won't happen all at once (and no, regular expressions are not especially helpful here).

If you want personal access to the message archive, or have any questions about the case, you are welcome to contact me via linkedIn.

Pretrial Message

My name is Peter Duimstra and I am the husband of Agness Kaku. I was dragged into this mess when John Szczepaniak threatened to destroy my career, along with the careers of my wife, my sister-in-law, and her husband.

As we near the beginning of John’s trial, I want to take this opportunity to thank everyone who has supported us. Your words have been a tremendous relief, and they have given us the confidence to see this nightmare through to the end. We want all of you to know that, no matter the outcome, we will be okay. If I never see another dime of venture funding, and Agness never sees another contract in the games industry — an industry littered with childish behaviour — we can always move on to less stressful things. We will be just fine.

I also want to acknowledge the people who attacked us, but then had the good sense to listen to our side of the story. One of the most dismaying things about falling victim to this kind of libel is watching the incurious crowd cheer the perpetrator onward, or worse, help to spread the libel even further. At least some of you haven't surrendered your reason.

Those of you who still believe John’s claims about us should know that we will be publishing the complete archive of emails and messages exchanged with him over the last year. While he continues to excerpt and censor, we will simply expose everything. Judge for yourselves whether John is responsible for his problems in Japan. We have nothing to hide.

Kick and scream as he might, John Szczepaniak is now being dragged into adulthood. Eventually, he will learn that his parents’ guest house cannot shield him from the consequences of his actions.

We are not the first people to be stalked and bullied by John Szczepaniak, but with any luck, we will be the last.