Robert H. Tourtelot, part 2
The saga continues beyond this post; make sure to read
…and coming up: two new posts on the topic, with more emails from Mr. Tourtelot, so make sure to sub to the RSS feed.
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…and, of course, check out SmartFlix.com!
But wait…there’s more!
Oh yes, the deal only includes a one-way ticket, as I do not believe you will be needing the return portion! Ciao, and have a good day. RHT
I accept. I’ll pay my own way back, of course.
Any weekend in June works for me.
Please mail the airline ticket (departing from Logan Airport, in Boston) to the address I previously supplied.
I look forward to our bout (I usually do heavy bag work in my training sessions, but I’ll make sure to add some speed bag work to the mix over the next few weeks).
Shall we specify the same $1,000 wager that you suggested to Mr. XXX in your bet about my height?
Belt also?
Robert H. Tourtelot, I never throw the first punch, but I always throw the second.
http://tb4law.com/pages/profile-bt.html
…Robert H. Tourtelot…believe[s] that the legal needs of the 21st Century will require attorneys whose skills exceed the walls of the courtrooms and the contents of law books….
Their skills must apparently also include…street fighting !!
Now, here’s something fun:
If we assume that he was 20 when he graduated from college, then it seems that I’ve got a street fight scheduled with a 71 year-old.
Anyone want to come with me to film the fight? I’ll pay for the airplane ticket.
Previously // Next.
May 18th, 2007 at 1:26 pm
I can’t believe a grown man would send you a “street fight” challenge. This law firm must be a sham company run by teenage delinquents. Unbelievable.
May 18th, 2007 at 1:33 pm
Ooh, ooh I’ll film it! I’ll film it! As a soon to be law school applicant, can I film the fight and put it on my applications? I’d pay for my own flight down there just to see it.
May 18th, 2007 at 1:34 pm
What he said. I think that would be rather hysterical to see actually. I would make sure to send that to the original plaintiff so he realizes that his lawyer is that immature. At 71 years old, its a little late in the game to be lacking wits.
I would advise against going to California though. They probably have some ridiculous law where if you fly out there to fight someone, they can put you in jail immediately.
May 18th, 2007 at 1:57 pm
Um… you’re not making this up? Isn’t the first letter there essentially a death threat? Don’t lawyers generally *not* go around issuing (provable) death threats?
May 18th, 2007 at 2:50 pm
Scott has a point. Perhaps the California Bar Association has rules about issuing death threats against people they have been hired to litigate against. Might be worth checking out….
May 18th, 2007 at 2:50 pm
I think Scott is right. That bit about not needing a plane ticket back is clearly implying you’d be dead. Dang.
May 18th, 2007 at 2:53 pm
And Alex is right. There is probably some federal law about crossing state lines to commit violent acts [since you aren't a pro, etc]. I would suggest filing a complaint with the bar.
– Doug
May 18th, 2007 at 2:53 pm
I wonder if he’s related to the BillY Tourtelot in Florida? (see wikipedia)
May 18th, 2007 at 3:24 pm
Travis,
He’s in his 70s. He’s a lawyer.
He doesn’t want to pummel you with his fists. If you show up he’s going to have you tossed in the hoosegow for breaking some law or another. Then you’re in his state, far from home and fighting on ground of his choosing.
The first rule of an ambush is not to walk into one.
May 18th, 2007 at 3:24 pm
You need to file a bar complaint against this guy. I’m not a California attorney, but I have to believe that even the California State Bar would discipline an attorney for making physical threats to an opposing counsel.
Also, at least in my state, attorneys are prohibited from contacting parties to litigation that have retained counsel. Once you referred him to your lawyer, he should have ceased all further communications with you on the subject. This kind of communication appears to be violating yet another ethical rule for which the attorney could be subject to discipline. (Although you should check with your own attorney regarding your communications to Tourtelot’s client, which may or may not be prohibited depending on the facts.)
May 18th, 2007 at 3:25 pm
(meant to say threats to opposing party . . . not opposing counsel – although any physical threat to anyone would be against rules of professionalism)
May 18th, 2007 at 3:30 pm
What D-Day said. Give it to your lawyer, let him do whatever it is that lawyers do when dealing with the more venomous of their kind.
Then go to the range, lift some weights,walk your dogs ..whatever it takes for you to mentally draw a breath and count to 10.
May 18th, 2007 at 4:01 pm
Dude, you are in deep trouble. It looks like this guy wan an attorney for Mark Furman: http://www.lectlaw.com/files/cas14.htm. Seems he sued the New Yorker for $50 million, LOL, because they misrepresented his client who was really such a great guy. In it, he seems to be accusing the New Yorker of libel for quoting public figures involved in the trial that he believes are making false statements. I am sure they got a long way with that theory.
Oh Jeez, he represented the Goldman’s at one point: http://www.courttv.com/casefiles/simpson/new_docs/goldmancivil.html. You are really toast. (By the way, didn’t Daniel Petrocelli, recently on the losing side with Skilling, represent the Goldman’s in the Simpson civil trial?)
I suppose based on this intimate involvement with the case, he wrote his own OJ insider book which seems to have crept up to just over 5,000,000 in the sales ranking, probably because of the publicity you are giving him.
Linked to you today. Wouldn’t want you to be anything but first on the google search for this guy.
May 18th, 2007 at 4:28 pm
Good God, this lawyer must be an idiot. He’s already prejudiced his client’s case beyond all retrieval, and now he’s courting a beating from a younger, bigger, fitter man. Why? Brain damage from some earlier unwise challenge, perhaps?
May 18th, 2007 at 4:46 pm
It all sounds so fake. He’ll never give you a ticket, but if he does you should go out there, cameras rollin’. Something interesting will happen, whatever it is.
May 18th, 2007 at 4:57 pm
Victor has a good digital video camera. If we meet you at the airport, can we all ride in the limo together?
Where do you find these people, Travis?
May 18th, 2007 at 5:07 pm
They find him.
May 18th, 2007 at 6:47 pm
Any weekend in June works for me.
If we meet you at the airport, can we all ride in the limo together?
June? I’m supposed to be in San Francisco for a week in June. LA is a long drive – I wonder if I can switch the training to the LA training center ….
May 18th, 2007 at 8:19 pm
There’s another explanation – Mr. Tourtelot may be the victim of identity theft. It all fits – a respectable lawyer makes public gaffes that doom his case from the start, and then proceeds to behave in a wildly unprofessional manner.
Of course, the counter argument starts with the phrase “respectable lawyer” – the cognitive dissonance is making me reach for the Advil right now …
May 18th, 2007 at 9:43 pm
Dude – I live in LA. You can stay at my house – it won’t be the first time I’ve opened my home to my imaginary friends from the internet without a prior meatspace meeting. Also, I have 3 dogs to make you feel at home.
If you’re really serious about this and want to come out a couple of days early, my wife works out at a kickboxing gym where all the trainers are professional fighters. They have sparring time in the ring every day, and guest passes are only $5.
Finally, if there’s a real concern about arrest and prosecution for crossing state lines with the intent to commit mayhem, arrange to sell tickets for $1 and donate the proceeds to charity. People are crossing state lines to fight Danny Bonaduce for charity all the time, and none of them are being prosecuted for it.
May 18th, 2007 at 11:32 pm
I go away for a few days, and this is what I come back to.
And yeah, I’d toss all this at your lawyer, with the simple instructions of: ‘WTF?’
May 19th, 2007 at 5:42 am
You could use the video of the trip to start a new Smartflix DVD feature: “Shysterfights”!
Have you retained the services of Leonard “J.” Crabs yet? He’d be perfect:
http://www.somethingawful.com/hosted/crabs/
May 19th, 2007 at 10:19 am
“Shysterfightsâ€! LMAO!
You could air in on Fox…
Seriously, this guy has a screw loose and I think Brian is right. Accepting his offer likely triggers some set of circumstances where you get arrested for something.
His ridiculously circuitous plan is already one quarter complete.
May 19th, 2007 at 10:57 am
re: where does Travis find these people. It appears from my limited observational experience that he emits some sort of wacko attraction field (maybe like attracts like ;-)). This, combined with his love of debate and absolute refusal to back down provides the perfect environment for bizzare conflict escalation.
May 19th, 2007 at 3:43 pm
Oh my gosh, “shysterfights”!
I nearly fell off my chair laughing.
May 19th, 2007 at 11:27 pm
“bizzare conflict escalation”
A new strategy in game theory?
May 21st, 2007 at 10:54 am
I thought it was the title of a song by The Cure.
May 22nd, 2007 at 2:37 pm
Trav, could you make the fight the -last- stop on your California tour? I’m sure it will go well but I’d rather not have to compete for your attention with your sore muscles.
I can probably film the fight, no problem. We’ll have to figure out transportation arrangements. I’ve only got a consumer grade mini-dv camera.
For a fight contract, you can start by borrowing the one that the East Bay Rats use (http://www.eastbayrats.com) when they have Fight Night. That’s a night where regular people get together, sign a contract saying “It’s no one’s fault if I get killed” and then get in the ring. Ask and I’ll find the text of the contract.
http://lee.org/blog/archives/2006/05/28/video-from-east-bay-rats-fight-night/
June 7th, 2007 at 12:27 pm
Danny Bonaduce will be fighting Robert Shapiro on June 11th. Maybe you can work the “younger men fighting older lawyers” theme and get on the undercard?
It sounds like an extremely unbalanced match, but supposedly Shapiro was a SERIOUS boxer when he was younger.
June 20th, 2007 at 10:20 am
[...] Previously // Next. [...]
June 20th, 2007 at 11:06 am
[...] Next. [...]
June 22nd, 2007 at 2:48 pm
If we assume that he was 20 when he graduated from college, then it seems that I’ve got a street fight scheduled with a 71 year-old.
It’s go time!
Mandelbaum! Mandelbaum!
( http://www.seinfeldscripts.com/TheEnglishPatient.html )
June 22nd, 2007 at 3:48 pm
Grampa’s gonna whup you, boy!
June 22nd, 2007 at 6:11 pm
Can I film the fight, please? I want to copyright the DVD and then liscense the rights to view it to all of Toilet-a-Lot’s partners and current clients. If they let anyone else view it I’ll ask them nicely not to do that, even though I didn’t say that wouldn’t be allowed before I took thier money. Then if they don’t comply I’ll claim to be morally superior becaue they did something I didn’t want them to. Then to prove I’m morally superior I’ll hire a lawyer to:
1. falsley represent the law on this issue
2. threaten baseless legal action
3. demean them based on physical attributes, whether accurate or not
4. threaten them with violence.
Does anyone know another lawyer who is sutpid/arrogant/unethical/just plain mean enough to do that for me?
Terrible thing about that internet: lets even short moderate-income people without law degrees voice their opinions.
June 22nd, 2007 at 6:16 pm
All this from a guy who whines “…how would you like that if someone did that to you?”
Pleeease!
June 22nd, 2007 at 7:41 pm
Why would a lawyer talking about ‘the other side of the Potomic(sic)’ be offering to fly you to California?
June 22nd, 2007 at 8:42 pm
I imagine him prepped for this bout in 19th century striped boxing gear, after a lovely medicine ball workout, perspiring gently, positioned Gentleman Jim style waiting for an official to annouce “Box!”. Bing Bang Boom Bap Pizzzow! “You sir have besmirched my honor, and assaulted me! To the Tort-mobile, posthaste!” All sorts of legal documents are left whirling in the wake of the jalopy taking off at mach 0.001. Once they settle to the ground you can read they are all advert flyers for his amazing law firm. Gotcha!
June 22nd, 2007 at 9:42 pm
Add another to the list of available cameramen – June is over, though – can we go in August some time? *grin* Maybe we could pool all the footage and make a multi-angle DVD on How To Make An Idiot Of Yourself In Front Of Half A Billion People.
June 22nd, 2007 at 10:22 pm
[...] part 2 [...]
June 23rd, 2007 at 12:13 am
Why not check if Vincent Versace would be interested in filming the fight?
June 23rd, 2007 at 5:46 am
Ha! I’ll fight him!
June 23rd, 2007 at 9:46 am
Tourtelot seems like a pun on “tort a lot”. Coincidence? Perhaps not.
June 23rd, 2007 at 11:37 am
[...] part 2 [...]
June 23rd, 2007 at 11:38 am
[...] part 2 [...]
June 23rd, 2007 at 12:19 pm
Hmm… It seems REALLY unlikely that any of this would really be happening. The picture that’s being painted is that of a man who has been practicing law for what, forty, fifty years, making threats to beat you up? It was sort of believable with the copyright thing, but once it got to physical threats, it seems impossible.
I mean, maybe it’s not (after all, Tourtelot looks like a real person) but to me, it has a lot of potential to be a Smartflix (everyone root for the little guy) publicity thing.
And if it is real, it’s hard to believe you’re stooping to their level and playing along with this crap. At first, it looked like you were taking the high road…
June 24th, 2007 at 2:53 pm
I will pay you if you let me know when this is going down. Seeing a 71 year old goon-for-hire getting beat is worth the trip to CA.
Perhaps he meant that once you see how nice California is, you will want to stay?
June 24th, 2007 at 9:37 pm
Hi, I have a small video production company in Denver. It’s a long way from LA, but if you’re serious about wanting someone to shoot the fight and edit the footage into something wonderful, I would love to do it and would pay for half our expenses out of my own pocket. I’m dead serious about this. Contact me if you want to discuss it further.
August 12th, 2008 at 9:18 am
[...] worst thing is that they’re confrontational and [...]