Take heart, good citizens.

Note: This is posted here, in the past, because we are not particularly interested in it anymore. We just want this information to be available to anyone else who is being taken by John Harlan.

If you are being threatened with legal action by John Harlan, read on.

In our case, we discovered that they were empty threats. He first claimed he would contact an attorney if we didn’t take down our posts. When Lloyd pointed out that if he couldn’t afford to pay for a monitor he probably couldn’t afford an attorney, he claimed that he has ‘four years of law school under his belt’. (I find that interesting because he is in his early 20′s. Going by the assumption that you can’t go into law school until after college, the earliest you could be at that point in your life is 26. Am I wrong?) Following that, he then he asked someone to pose as an attorney. He has also contacted people to ‘take down our site’.

In May of 2011, he did have our sheriff’s deputy serve us court papers, but he did not appear for the court date. We were very, very prepared with a binder of indexed evidence, all the photos Lauren took the day that our package arrived, and our star witness.

If you’d like to read the e-mail exchange, it’s here. Warning: it is long. Fun game: Find all the typos and misspellings!

If you’d like to read the ‘cease and desist’ he posted on hardforum.com to someone referring people back to our website, the text is below. I regret that I didn’t get a screenshot of that, but here is a screenshot how he said he has removed it since “all applicable individuals have had the chance to read it!” (Update: Here is a cached shot of his original letter to theterminator.)

So, if you find yourself in a similar situation, here’s our advice: Document EVERYTHING. Take photos, make hard copies of all exchanges (learn how to take screenshots and print those), and above all: Be honest. If you are in the right, you have no reason to be afraid.

Hello Theterminator,

I am going to say the following to you one time and one time only! You are to immediately cease and desist from writing slanderous and defamatory statements about me and my business and furthermore you are to remove the following postings made by yourself # 108, # 111, #116

These statements are slanderous and defamatory of which you have absolutely no legally admissible evidence to substantiate your claims. If you do not comply with this order the following will take place.
I will instruct my attorney to being taking steps to determine your identity and once that has been established I will take legal action against you! If you think I am bluffing you should ask yourself what might have made the owners of those postings to suddenly decide to remove the content?

Furthermore I would like to give you a crash course on the law! You would have absolutely no defense what so ever for making the statements that that you have unless the following has occurred! Unless you and I have done business and the statements that you have made on these forums happened to you personally and you could prove tangible evidence of these events taking place the comments you have made are slanderous. Furthermore just because I currently don’t know your identity does not mean that I cannot find out who you are! The process is actually quite simple, if you continue to post slanderous and defamatory comments I will have my attorney obtain a court order to obligate the owners of this web forum to divulge your registration information and your internet IP address once that has been obtained your IP address will traced back to your Internet service provider who will have your real name and address on file and they too will be obligated to reveal that information once they are served with a court order to do so. Once my attorney has obtained your information I will instruct him to begin taking legal action against you for libel and as I have already stated you will have absolutely no defense what so ever and you would lose the suit and any assets you possess would be seized until the judgment against you is paid in full! If you have no assets at this time then a lean would be placed against you and any future employer would be obligated under the law to take a portion of your pay check and set it aside until the judgment is paid in full!
I have already mailed an order to cease and desist to the owners of this web form via USPS Registered Mail!
To be clear this is your one and only chance to avoid having legal action taken against you! Furthermore a cease and desist order has been sent to you in private message!
Any further comments regarding my business in a negative light will result in legal action being taken against you!
Sincerely,

LCDrepairworld, LCDrepairwarehouse

Oh, and pray for him. I am.