I went to the Trash today, my first day that I’ve been back at my usual computer. Usually I’m the primary trash monitor here, but it was harder to do on my smartphone. NOTE: NOW THERE IS CATEGORY 4 AT THE END., WHERE MRS. CAMERON AND HER SUPPORTERS COMPLAIN. Here we go, by category:
1. Purported Links to James Mai Record
I’ve known that one commenter with a pseudonym making fun of Vietnamese names has been complaining that I deleted their comment. I had some substantial charges within it, which I am not going to endorse for lack of personal knowledge, but I’m going to separate them into a list of numbered points, retaining the links and getting rid of the hashtags. Here you go.
- James Mai has a felony conviction in Nevada
- He violated probation here in OC in Westminster
- The case is almost 20 years old
- [As a result], he cannot have a gun.
- [Nevertheless], he has weapons [Implied]
- He has a court record [available for public review] at West Court, Westminster
- His nonprofit based in Tustin, AAPIUnited, is a scam
- His nonprofit collects donations at this link: https://aapiunited.com/donate/
- He does not not have the right to collect donations, because his nonprofit does not have a Board of Directors
- [But] he was and is fraudulently collecting donations
- Proof for this from Attorney Generals Office is [available at] the link below:
https://rct.doj.ca.gov/Verification/Web/Details.aspx?result=05d2985f-acf8-4edc-8622-ef7d2e27132a - His website does not ever mention he himself committed a hate crime
My comments: I don’t know how much of this is true. #1-6 are news to me. I’ve heard about #7-10 myself — and I may have reported them — but the supporting link at #11 appears to be dead. If I did report on this, it wasn’t dead at the time, but I’m not sure what it would have said. As for #12, I’m not surprised that it wouldn’t be present on his website. My current understanding of things is that there’s no evidence other than his public confession and arguable lack of adequate denials that he ever committed a hate crime; there’s stronger evidence that he bragged about committing one to make himself look tough and dangerous, which is still pretty bad and idiotic in my book. I understand that things have been happening on the County’s Housing and Community Services Commission — specifically, Commissioners quitting rather than continuing to serve with Mai — but I only know of one such action firsthand. I have not seen any evidence that Supervisors Chaffee, Do, and Wagner seem not to give this tiniest molecule of methane about this and I think that that is a disgusting abdication of duty.
2. Su Yu
[1] Comment for Greg Diamond. The fact that, in your opinion Doug Chaffee is more important (significant) than the woman doxed by James Mai is in itself significant as to your motives. You should have thought this through a little better, the part about suing the County.
Ironically, the County could be on the hook for an incident that is still on their website, it’s the doxing of that lady that happened at a OCHCD meeting. Did you tell her she only has six months to file a claim for that? If not, then why?
You seem pretty gung-ho about facing James Mai in court, from your comments on this blog piece. It’s strange that this dissipated when Mai accused you on paper of stalking him. Mai leaked the papers to some rightwing Asian Instagram site. That’s yet another incident of doxing because the papers mention the woman’s name, or one of her names. You aren’t screaming “defamation” on Mai’s part, and it’s a struggle to understand why. Did you stalk Mai or not ?
Be a man and live up to your comments. You stirred up a hornets nest, now you are running for cover. You promise not to until the sweet, sweet discovery? You bit off more than you can chew!
Mai is an asshole and an abusive one at that. He also bit off more than he could chew, when he bragged about that sick incident that wasn’t. If Dan is right about one thing is that this story has no winners, and one real victim.
[2] Greg, the definition of “perplexing” is Katrina Foley’s alliance with Diane Hearkey. Don’t see you moaning and groaning about it at all. You didn’t see that one coming, when you wrote this did you?
In case you missed it, there are screenshots of some comments you made on this blog on Instagram, on a rightwing page. Not the Asian Dawn, a private one. One of the comments shows you saying you promise not to demurr until you get to the sweet sweet Discovery! I Don’t you think you should start working on the Sweet Sweet Discovery, since you’re accused of stalking and it’s making the rounds on Instagram. Like James Mai, your arrogance is your undoing. Though I give you credit for being better than him by any standard. My point is your words will cost you. Stand by your words, if you are that confident.
As far as your comment that any defendant sued by Mai can do discovery, that takes money. Something neither you nor this lady has.
You don’t even know the name of the Commission he is on. Hint, it’s not “Housing and Human Services” it is Housing and Community Development Commission.
[3] Ok, here is the comment, just know it’s on Instagram, along with the part about Greg and his ex client stalking James Mai.
On the KAFOC thing, I call total bullshit. Assuming Tammy Kim is a member of KAFOC, she would not have shown up to protest Jay Chen in favor of the Steal! Individual members of KAFOC choosing to attend James Mai’s accent protest did so on their own, not representative of KAFOC. It is also a lie that Jay Chen made fun of any accent, it was a dig at the intelligence level of an opposing candidate. Leave it to Mai to politicize it. Greg Diamond and James Mai have that in common too. Politicize to weaponize. Now Mai gets to cry that this is a political hit job. That’s because this article reads like one, hello!
[4] [TO VERN:] Funny you should mention Cerritos. Chuong Vo withdrew his bid to be considered mayor. The election was Wednesday. In Cerritos, the council members select the mayor and Chuong Vo was all about another term until some Hindus got in his way. He then said he wasn’t looking for another term. He got trolled so bad last week, during the outgoing ceremony, they cut the Livestream off, then deleted it. This was his cost of joining with James Mai last year. That was the event where first Janice Hahn dropped out, then LA vs Hate, then Sheriff Villanueva and finally Chuong Vo. Then some Hindus, I guess resurfaced and the disturbing screenshots came out again and the articles about Vo and Mai got circulated. So Vo paid a heavy price. Don’t cry for him, though. He still gets a fat stipend for “health insurance” even though as a Sheriff’s employee he already fully covered.
[5] Greg writes as follows:
Disclosure: My Role in This Matter
I agreed to represent LC (despite our considerable political differences) in early preparation stages of a possible action against James Mai, and probably the County for its negligent supervision of him, over his harassment, discrimination, and retaliation towards her, which has included “doxxing.”
Question for this blog and Greg. There are screenshots from a rightwing Asian Instagram page that show this paragraph being different. The screenshot says you will be suing James Mai and the County. Not a possible and not early planning or preparation.
This is different from the “possible lawsuit against James Mai”. So, did Mai or one of his adorers deepfake a screenshot?
Or did Greg change the wording? Why would you do that? Did you not believe they were screenshotting stuff? Just trying to get to the bottom of this. If a lawsuit is filed, and it sounds like it will be don’t you think it looks bad that it was changed? How would you explain that?
How will changing the wording and adding disclaimers help? Do you have an original of what that paragraph was ? Can you reply to this question, openly and on the blog?
[6] So attorneys take cases or not depending on the political view of the plaintiff or defendant? in need of representation? Is that even legal? Never seen such a thing like a lawyer explaining to themselves why they took on a client with different political views. This is sounding like the whole Bake my Cake thing and religious beliefs of the bakers. Except they said it violated their religious beliefs to bake a gay wedding cake. They said they were fine with servicing gay couples and selling them the same cake as they do other customers. The cases were Christians, but Moslems would not take those requests either, and at least one Moslem restaurant owner was sued for not catering a gay wedding.
Legal representation is not the same. Your logic doesn’t make sense, and it’s suspicious if you are changing the blog after the fact. It’s maybe fine if you say it’s edited, but you don’t. Did you edit that part of the post, or are the screenshots seen elsewhere a fake?
Which is true and which is real?
[7] Those legal papers are on Instagram too, posted by James Mai or his allies. It specifically accuses you of stalking him. Why haven’t you addressed this? If someone filed something against someone else and put in there that I was doing creepy stuff like stalking, I would be mad and push back. You are totally ignoring the allegations against you, which is just wild. Did you stalk Mai or not?
[8] Hi, Greg Diamond had the nerve to delete my comments after I posted that he is being accused in court filing by James Mai of stalking. He also posted on his blog that he is suing the County then changes and edits his article. He is being unethical and lying to his readers then runs and hides for cover when things get to hot in the kitchen.
[My comments] Does anyone really need an explanation of why I did not want to engage with a pseudonymous vendor of weak charges and misinformation? It’s exhausting — and pointless, given that only one of us has accountability for what we right ! But I will address a few small parts of the accusations here.
So far as I know, James Mai has not accused me of harassing him. I understand from Mrs. Cameron that he did seek an injunction against her for cyber-harassment; she’s subpoenaing [me] as a witness in that hearing, for reasons unclear to me, but I’m not a party to it. If he does seek an injunction against me, I will face off against him. If he files suit against me or this blog, I will address those charges at that time. I don’t expect either to happen — but who knows with this guy? He has never served me any papers, that I know of, and I don’t read Instagram, let alone his comments on it.
If anyone with a verifiable name and identity wants to ask me about any of the above, they’re welcome to. I may not choose to answer, but you can go ahead and try your shot. One other thing I will say is that my mention of her and my very different political positions was not to say that I only accept clients with whom I agree; on the contrary, it was to point out that I DO accept clients with whom I disagree. We agreed, after quite a while, that our attorney-client relationship was not a good one and that she would be better off seeking counsel anywhere. But I still respect what she did to blow the whistle, I have taken steps even after we parted company to help her, and I hope that she prevails in all current controversies in all legal forums. But, in most ways, I’m not one well-suited to help her.
3. Death Wishes
You may note that someone anonymously wished me dead during the 10-11 days while I was sick with Covid. I think that Vern kindly took these down; I put them back up today. Impotent nattering of spineless cowards doesn’t usually bother me; and I think it’s useful to note that these sorts of things seem to come from only one side of the fence.
4. Mrs. Cameron and Her Allies Have Their Say
[THIS UPDATE WAS ADDED EARLY SUNDAY MORNING, APRIL 30]
Mrs. Cameron has expressed her ire about this post, as have several of her supporters. Those comments now appear below.
Mrs. Cameron wishes the following to be known:
- You [meaning me] still have not said on the latest blog post that i deny the accusations and that the injunction was partly granted and partly DENIED
- You have not said that the allegations by the vietnamese vandal are unproven and that no evidence was attached to the filing
- You have not admitted that your name was mentioned in the affidavit he filed as being one of the alleged harassers
My responses:
- I did not address the prior injunction at all, let alone the injunction being partially granted and partially denied. I only mentioned the upcoming hearing. That was not the point of this post. But let the record show, for anyone who can’t figure out that there would be no upcoming hearing if the facts weren’t disputed, that she denies Mai’s accusations.
- I am sick and tired of Mrs. Cameron calling Mai “the Vietnamese Vandal.” I started calling him “the Hate Crime Braggart” long ago because his ethnicity is not an issued as regards the brag about the hate crime and it does not seem to me that he likely committed the crime he described — but rather that he’s a pathetic and tasteless blowhard. I haven’t characterized the finding at all other than to say that it alleged cyberharassment, so of course I didn’t get into whether the allegations are proven and whether evidence was — or should have been — attached to the filing.
- My name was mentioned in the affidavit, although it was not clear to me based upon a largely illegible PDF of crumpled paper that was sent to me. A clearer version of the document has now been sent to me, and it says this (I’m inserting some paragraph breaks and emphasis):
“This individual [i.e., Mrs. Cameron] has shown up where I am public [sic] and intimidated me [i.e., James Mai] along with other individuals (Greg Diamond) who both approached me physically, in person.
“This person has attended committee meetings both city and county where I volunteer and work as a board member, committee member, and commissioner with the intent to harass me. Harassment included name calling, finger pointing and general disruption of meetings.
“This person has also harassed others whom [sic] are co-workers at the city and county by harassing them and publishing false information about them and myself including workplace emails (or emails of superiors and coworkers.)
“This person publicaly [sic] stated that they [sic] if people “do not shame” me, they will suffer harassment by this person and her aliases.”
Every instance of “this individual” or “this person” applies solely to Mrs. Cameron. My role in this allegation is that I accompanied to a HCS Board meeting and approached him physically in person. Unless Mai is much stupider than I imagine, this is not an allegation of any harassment by me, because I was fully entitled to serve him a document preservation order on behalf of Mrs. Cameron, whom I represented in a limited capacity, which was necessary for me to have any chance of figuring out what was going on. My recollection is that I also spoke before the Commission that day about Mai’s actions (the bragging about the hate crime) and Mrs. Cameron’s concerns that he may have been misusing commission resources to retaliate against her and violate at least one state law.
So for those who say that I’ve failed to admit that Mai has included me among the people harassing him, I can only say that so far he has accused me of approaching him (to serve him a legal document, prior to the start of the meeting, which he cheerfully accepted) and perhaps of criticizing him in public comments at that meeting. As neither of those in any way can constitute “wrongdoing,” and I am not “this person” names in the document, I stand by my position that he has not accused me personally of wrongdoing or harassment. I don’t think that it’s a big issue, frankly, but Mrs. Cameron and her supporters apparently do — and I admit that it is that sort of error that someone with little knowledge of the law could understandably make.
Someone named Tim Lee has made some nasty comments towards me as well; I’ll address them in comments.
And yes, I am as bored by this as most readers are, but at least you are getting a sense of these issues.
A James Mai did speak on an Irvine agenda item this past Tuesday re gun safety wherein he appeared to admit he was a gun owner.
That’s still a minority of the comments we trash.
I’ve noticed though that the Liberal OC and Matt’s blog haven’t been publishing our trolls as much. Maybe that’s why we got one the other day lumping us all together pretty comically and whining that “Vern Nelson, Greg Diamond, David Zenger, Matt Cunningham and Dan Chmiliwinski are all cut from the same cloth: (Mostly) Fat, educated, unemployed, middle aged white men…” (before turning characteristically obscene and vicious)
I’m not fat and I’m employed by the Red Peregrine Terrazzo Design Studio in Bern Canton.
Also, referring to Jerbal and ChemicaLewinski as educated isn’t quite right, is it?
Whatever education they may have had didn’t quite take. No real critical thinking skills evident.
But I guess we’re all the same now, in SOMEBODY’s view.
Hi, this is Chris Diaz. I sent a text message to Greg Diamond. I am Cameron’s friend. She is devastated by your slander of her. She is in process of making a formal response on your blog and Liberal OC. She says if you trash her comment it will still be on the other blog.
You claim to not know for sure if James Mai filed anything against Cameron. So you should use allegedly, maybe. You should say he is making allegations that anyone can.
Even with that you conveniently forget Cameron sent you a paper 3 weeks ago that doesn’t have her name but has yours.
Why don’t you talk about Mai’s accusations he is making naming you?
You and Cameron should be teaming up on this, instead you slander her.
She told me to tell you that you won’t be supbeaned by her. She won’t dispute allegations against you. She has more to worry about and you do not seem to realize you violated her privacy. I have already sent the page you couldn’t read (you say) to Brea, Santa Ana and Anaheim and Fullerton cities for public comment. There is no way you didn’t know about the accusations against you. Even if you are right about it, you shouldn’t have salandered Cameron, because you don’t know for yourself if Mai really filed this. But you repeat it l, and not mention what she filed about you.
Cameron does not have a professional reputation because she is not employed. You don’t think this will affect your reputation, ok.
My respect for Greg Diamond is gone. This is so unethical to defame LC and not even say these are “allegations”. Using a word search, I found Greg has used “allegedly” / or some variation there of plenty of times.
LC asked me to relay that she isn’t subpoenaing Greg. The allegations against Greg will lie because he can’t dispute them. He keeps saying he is not a party to the case, so if not called as a witness by a party, Greg can’t refute them.
Greg followed and intimidated James Mai, according to what the latter wrote under penalty of perjury. Greg wont clarify he was LC’s attorney when he followed Mai.
Greg,stop being holier than thou towards Dan. You are every bit as grifting, and probably more.
Hi “April.” (Not the name by which you emailed me, but I choose to keep that name private. I’m happy to learn that you’re Mrs. Cameron’s friend and hope that you may be of some some use
I would love to be able to defend myself fully against your and Mrs. Cameron’s attacks against me. Unfortunately for me, I actually DO NOT want Cameron to fare badly in her upcoming hearing, because frum what I know she doesn’t deserve it, and I think that my commenting right now to any great extent would be counterproductive.
I will mention a few things:
James Mai does not have any action of any kind against me, so I’m in no position to “defend myself” against any “charges.”
James Mai seems to complain that, when I was in the early stages of assessing whether I would represent Mrs. Cameron in a possible case against him, I quickly wrote up a document preservation order and gave it to him. That’s a protected action and that’s probably one reason why he hasn’t targeted me. Not long after that (and some other investigation), I decided not to pursue the representation. I had sincerely hoped that someone else would. If my acknowledgement — that at that time I was representing Mrs. Cameron for the limited purpose of investigating whether she had a case I might be interested in taking — helps her in her hearing I am glad for that.
My other commentary involving Mai has been from the perspective of a journalist who was trying to find out whether he had committed a hate crime, or at least bragged about a fictional one he described, and why the OC Board of Supervisors was so completely uninterested about what Mai may have done. As freedom of the press, including volunteer press, is protected activity except under very limited conditions that don’t apply here. That may be another reason why he hasn’t targeted me.
As for your calling me a “grifter,” in my opinion you’re an uneducated idiot.
I literally have no idea about how anything I’ve written about Mrs. Cameron in this post or this comment could be construed as “defamation.” Any you, from what I can tell, have even less idea, because you don’t even seem to know what “defamation” entails.
You can keep on commenting here for now — and eventually, I will give you the full and tart reactions that you deserve. But I do not see why, if you are her friend, you would want me to say anything more about Mrs. Cameron prior to her hearing. If James Mai wants to subpoena me, he can do so. (Be careful what you wish for.)
Hello,Greg let’s break this down.
“James Mai seems to complain that, when I was in the early stages of assessing whether I would represent Mrs. Cameron in a possible case against him, I quickly wrote up a document preservation order and gave it to him. That’s a protected action and that’s probably one reason why he hasn’t targeted me.”
That is not what James Mai’s declaration says. His declaration says that you and Cameron showed up in public places to harass and intimidate him.
Cameron says she told you she denies all of the accusations. She said you didn’t mention in your blog post that she always told you she denies them. She said you didn’t clarify in this blog post that these are just allegations. She also says she sent you a copy of the accusations made against you and her like 3 weeks ago. So to say you were not aware is wrong. She is feeling very confused and upset. I told her she needs to come on here and comment. She is too unglued because you are washing your hands of this. Why James Mai didn’t name you as a defendant, nobody knows. He sure is saying some rotten things about you, though.
As I note under section 4 recently added to the post, he says that Mrs. Cameron showed up in public places to intimidate him. He only says that I accompanied her in a particular instance in which I approached him — leaving out that I did so simply as someone serving a legal demand upon him. That was not an accusation of “wrongdoing,” as serving such a notice is not wrongdoing. (The notice was hastily handwritten because, based on the previous few meetings, we did not expect Mai to show up at that HCS meeting — so we had had no plan to “confront” him at all. We just wanted to talk to the Commission about our concerns.)
Oh, I think that I DO know why Mai didn’t also seek a restraining order against me. (By the way, that would not in any event have made me a “defendant”; this was a request for a court order, not a filing of a complaint.) I expect that someone more knowledgeable about the law than he is probably explained the situation to him.
Again, I did not find the material sent to me to be legible, so saying that I “lied” about not knowing that he made “allegations” (of lawful behavior) against me is sorta stupid. But having finally gotten legible copies, I was able to determine — as you’ll see in part 4 — that he didn’t do what you said he did. Does that mean that you “lied”? No — I just think that you didn’t know what you were talking about.
Hi, why are you ignoring comments?
OC Hate Crime please stop emailing my law firm email address. Thank you.
(Greg, I’ve got emails about you in my law firm account from OC Hate Crime)
So I was told to expect.
OK, I’ve re-opened comments here since people are commenting on Mary’s hearing in inappropriate places elsewhere. I’m transporting the comments here one by one and will respond to at least some of them below. And then we need some provisional rules for people who want to further the James Mai vs. Mary Cameron issue.
1) COMMENT ONLY IN THIS ITEM OR IN AN OPEN THREAD.
2) IF YOU KEEP COMMENTING ON OTHER POSTS DEVOTED TO OTHER TOPICS, YOUR COMMENTS WILL BE DELETED AND YOUR ACCOUNT MAY BE MARKED TO GO TO TRASH.
3) FOR NOW, WE DO NOT PLAN TO MAKE A BIG DEAL ABOUT JAMES MAI-RELATED MATTER, BUT I WILL PROVIDE A BRIEF RECAP OF RECENT EVENTS BELOW.
4) YOU DO NOT HAVE AN ENTITLEMENT TO TURN THIS INTO A JAMES MAI AND MARY BLOG. READERS NOT DIRECTLY INVOLVED DO NOT LIKE IT.
5) I DO APPRECIATE YOUR ATTEMPTS TO OPPOSE ANTI-HINDU (AND OTHER ANTI-ASIAN) HATRED. BUT I AND OJB HAVE DONE MORE THAN OUR PART AND WE NEED TO GIVE IT A BREAK UNLESS NEW CIRCUMSTANCES TRULY WARRANT IT.
6) IF YOU WANT TO CREATE YOUR OWN BLOG DEVOTED TO THESE ISSUES, GO AHEAD.
Namaste, Greg Ji. I ask you read my email. I recall you saying you block all Hindus from blog, but I have important information to share to you. The rubbish online Vietnamese or East Asian site is again saying things about someone. I do not desire people to go looking for it, so am not naming it. The atrocious comments is horrid enough, but they are as well saying Mai is a friend of the Public Prosecutor (District’s Attorney). I sent to you the link. Please examine this. Also much slandered are Aarti Kaushal Chopra and Dr Treseder on same piece.
I do not understand why they say Aarti is anti Asian or hate Asians. Aarti Chopra is Indian born very devout Hindu. She is Asian, the other lady is Asian Indian Christian. What is the matter with these East Asian people?
No, Amit, I have never blocked “all Hindus” from the blog. I didn’t even block all BJP-endorsing Hindus from the blog. I only eventually blocked people who were so obsessed with getting across their point of view, regardless of our attempts to maintain a sense of order here that would keep discussions in limited places. (And while I say “blocked,” that just means that it goes to trash.)
I will look at that email again. My initial response is that I didn’t want to write about them for fear of broadening the attack. I did find them disgusting.
Aarti has been treated very badly — certainly by people making unfair attacks against her, but also by people (well, at least one person) on your side of the issue who were flooding her email box and would not leave her alone. I told her that I cannot stop that, I can just tell people that it’s a bad idea. I am doing so again here.
Dr. Treseder should never have been dragged into this at all.
Your criticizing “these East Asian people” just plays into James Mai’s hands, because it makes you look like a bigot. It can be read two ways. One is as referring to these relatively few people — Mai and relatively few followers, i.e. these PARTICULAR East Asian people who have either supported Mai in his attacks or conducted their own. (Although to be fair, some of the attacks on Mai, especially anonymous ones, have been over the top and I have to condemn those tactics as well, even as I understand their motivation.) But if that’s what you want to say, why not use a term like “these James Mai supporters and leave their ethnicity out of it?
The other possibility is that you blame “East Asian people” generally for this kind of behavior. That is unfair and deeply wrong. I hope that I don’t have to explain why to you if I can help it. Unless you say otherwise, I’ll presume that this is not what you meant to say. If it is … well, I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it.
Actually, the one harassing Aarti Chopra was Suzanna Stopani Cooper (Flores) it was definitely not someone on any Hindis team.
She’s James Mai’s mouthpiece and the one responsible for posting all Cameron’s court dates in a case that should never even have been mentioned because it has nothing to do with James Mai. Ms Flores’s brother is a OC deputy sheriff and James Mai is a personal friend of Sheriff Don Barnes.
Which is another great reason to get a new Sheriff in town, as if we didn’t have enough already.
See Chris’s Instagram page @OChousingrights, she found several pictures some of them taking recently of James Mai with the Sheriff. He’s another idiot the OC can do without.
Is this Chris? #JamesMai lost his rubbish request for protection from Cameron. His kids they more are in need of protection from him. I say this looking at his Instagram with his toddler boy wandering about the car park by himself. No adult nearby. His page is public @jimmai.
The lost case would make a great blog story, no?
Yeah, it is that Chris from HCW.
No, I don’t think that the case would make for a great blog story, at least not one written by me, because I was quickly instructed to leave the courtroom due to my having been subpoenaed by Mary as a witness. A witness is not allowed to watch other witnesses speak prior to their own testimony.
YOU (AMIT AND HIS FRIENDS) SHOULD BE SURE TO READ ALL OF THE WAY TO THE BOTTOM OF THIS COMMENT!
To me the most important thing about the hearing happened beforehand and outside the courtroom. Mary’s attorney was absolutely flooded by emails — easily over 100 in less than a day — from Mary’s supporters making demands of him and issuing orders like he was their servant. The greatest contribution I probably made to her winning this hearing was in sympathizing with him, recounting my own experiences with that sort of onslaught, and telling him that it wouldn’t last. Opponents of James Mai really need to ease up on sending that sort of onslaught to unsuspecting and unwilling targets: he doesn’t have time to read them all, so it doesn’t do any good; and it’s really demoralizing, so it does do real harm.
The main reason that Mary won should give the opponents of James Mai reading this pause. Mary was fortunate in having been assigned a really sharp and fair judge; It could have been much worse.
There were two issues for the hearing: (1) Mai’s attempt to extend and intensify the temporary civil harassment limited injunction (which didn’t do much, didn’t do it for long, and is available based on a much lower standard of proof than required for this motion) into a more significant court order, and (2) Mary’s purported Anti-SLAPP suit against him.
Mary’s attorney said in open court that he had not known about the Anti-SLAPP, had not prepared to address it, and could not represent her for it. I offered to step in; the judge said that I could not both represent her and be a witness — which is generally true but I’m not sure applies to separate matters (but it probably does) — and gave me a choice; as I had been subpoenaed as a witness I close that role and left. That ended up not mattering anyone because there was a defect in the service of the Anti-SLAPP — which probably would have been rejected anyway, and which wouldn’t have mattered because Mai didn’t hire a lawyer whose fees Mary could have been required to pay. So having the motion be rejected for procedural grounds was the best possible result for Mary — and it would not have turned out that way if the judge had not been so completely on the ball.
Then, as a potential witness, I left for the cafeteria down the hall, where people go to hang out. Because there had been a delay starting the hearing (for reasons I will not describe), we broke for lunch and Mary and her lawyer — who was really on the ball, and had predicted the outcome really well — joined me in the cafeteria. The judge had done the questioning of Mai and his sole witness by herself — and quickly caught on to the fact that there was not even a smidge of evidence that Mary herself wrote, was involved in, solicited, or otherwise conspired in the publication of any of the comments that might have defamed or harassed Mai. (He had done this complaint by himself as well. Look, there’s a reason that people hire lawyers, though in this case the reason might have been to talk him out of filing it with that weak of a basis.)
Over lunch, we discussed whether I should go in and testify at all. I could add nothing to Mary’s care that Mai had not done what was necessary to obtain this relief. We decided that all I would end up doing is drawing attention away from the fact that there was nothing to his case. So I stayed there, prepared to be beckoned in if it had turned out to seem advisable, and after a short time they returned with the news that the judge had denied the request for an order. And that was that.
Now, the part that I want make sure that Amit Dave and others read: some of the things anonymously written about Mai were truly disgusting, and some did involve his kids. (I believe that some anonymous commenter here screen-named something like “James MAI-NOR ATTRACTED” had tried to publish them here, and I trashed them. I would not have wanted to defend anyone on a defamation charge about them, and even thought the Supreme Court just ruled that this blog could not be sued for publishing them, that doesn’t mean that we’re obliged to do so.) But here’s the thing: if Mary had been found to have been the author of those emails — and perhaps some others, though those are the ones I remember — Mai might have gotten his injunction, and possibly more.
The moral here is not “use a pseudonym when you defame someone” — I will be more likelier than before to toss you out. It’s “don’t defame other people.” In this case, it wasn’t necessary — I’m informed that MAI DID ADMIT IN OPEN COURT THAT HE HAD PUBLISHED THE NOTORIOUS HATE-CRIME BRAG GRAPHIC THAT WE’VE ALL SEEN, although this happened while I was excluded from the courtroom — and the truth was more than enough to sink his credibility without larding it with lies.
Looking forward to your article of the #jamesmai court hearing!
It will be a comment, rather than a story, for reasons I’ll explain therein.
Hi, my name is Omar. I didnt know much about this backstory, had to do a lot of research. I dont personally know Cameron,like I just know of her. I know some people who were involved in some of the activism with the OC Housing Commission. I don’t know this Commissioner James Mai, I had to Google him to read all the articles about the hate crime he said he did.
This civil harassment case came to the attention of some activists and we were concerned about the consequences like in terms of speaking about a public figure. That’s pretty much all I know so I will mostly comment on that. I read his accusations and it was pretty wild that she would do all of the stuff for a year like he said and never be arrested or charged with a crime. That would trigger anyone’s bullshit detector. Definitely set off mine. Then I read the response that her lawyer filed and it was just like wow. It is totally obvious that this was filed to shut her up.
I was concerned about the case from a perspective of housing rights and homeless rights activists and stuff. I can tell you that someone forwarded me some emails where this attorney apparently was not really reading the stuff people were sending him. I also know that some people tried to involve the ACLU, First Amendment coalition and a UCLA professor who has a entire side hustle lecturing about these types of cases all over California, but her attorney never responded to them. Maybe because he thought it was a slam dunk case and he didn’t need any help. I do think it’s weird that he refused help.
Then I went back and read some of the public comments sent to the City of Irvine about James Mai and it’s pretty obvious who was responsible for calling him out and who was organizing the effort to kick him out. It was this lady Arti Chopra. It also looks like people who were affiliated with her were the ones making the disgusting comments probably because they are Hindi and they were just mad. I guess if I was Hindi I would be mad too,
whoever these people are really put Cameron in a fucked up position. I did watch some of the videos were they paraded her around in the Irvine City Council and I think that was wrong.
Aarti is not innocent in this. She deserved the blow back she got. There’s a reason she resigned on the fly from the Irvine Child Care committee after only being an office for 4 months. She resigned because the email chains from last year involving this Hate Shame organization or whatever the Hindi activists were the ones behind pretty much all of the pedophile comments. Looking at all of the emails in the thread and comparing them to the public comments I found on the granicus website,it became pretty clear who was behind the pedo comments and it was friends of Aarti.
She doesn’t deserve any sympathy because she knew what was going down and she was perfectly happy as long as her name wasn’t associated with it. That is why James Mai blamed Cameron because he couldn’t figure out who else to name. But if he had seen the emails that were forwarded to me and compared them with the public comments it is so not rocket science.
For me personally this was spooky because I’m also a housing rights activist and this could happen to any of us who criticize or call out a public figure. I don’t think this case should be easily forgotten, and it deserves a story of its own.
If you were so involved in it since all this time you definitely should write about it and it should get more publicity because practically any activist could be targeted in the same way. I will say I know Chris personally and she has definitely done a lot to call attention to this. Her Instagram account has only been up for around 2 months and she has like 150 followers including many well known liberal activists. Chris deserves props for her efforts.
This really doesn’t have anything to do with Hindis because there was no hate crime. This has to do with the cyberbullying and the way Cameron was targeted. Yes,there are some Hindis who had her back, on the flip side there is this Aarti Kaushal Chopra who pimped the hate crime story to get herself into office. It backfired on her and she deserves all of that and more.
The court documents were posted on Twitter and included some of the evidence that was presented by James Mai and it shows Aarti denied any involvement and even going so far as blaming Cameron. Being an activist myself, this is total cringe. Aarti and her crew got to walk away and never suffered any consequences. She is definitely not the victim here and she did not even support Cameron, but actually cause more problems for her.
What would be really cool is if a post could be done with maybe also the attorney giving his take on the case.
As far as attorneys fees,Cameron has a right to have her legal fees reimbursed, and there might be a way to hold the County responsible. That’s just my personal opinion but in reading his allegations its so obvious this was done to silence her and stop her from attending meetings. In my opinion, the County can’t be allowed to look the other way. It would be awesome to send them a really strong message so stuff like this doesn’t happen again.
Also looking at social media I noticed on Facebook and Twitter that this woman Suzanna Stopani Flores is contacting people and saying really freaky stuff about Cameron. She’s doing it publicly and she said the reason she’s doing it is because they lost the civil harassment order.
The Asian Dawn, which is what I think the other commenter is referring to by “East Asian people” I don’t know why he didn’t just name the site but they are the ones who made an update saying that he has this court case and they doxxed Cameron all over again. Now they are just hating because the civil harassment was denied. Anyone can see James Mai is not in fear of Cameron. He and his team are going out of their way to defame her, like really taking it over the top. Talk about sore losers? It doesn’t seem like they should get away with what they are doing.
I think it is too much simplifying it to make this about a hate crime that didn’t happen or about certain ethnic groups or races. The real issue I think is public figures abusing the justice system and if Cameron hadn’t had a really decent judge then she would have been screwed over. By extension this would have sent a bad message to other activists which is why this really needs to be what the spotlight should be on.
No offense to the Hindus but this has nothing to do with a cow. This has to do with a public official on a power trip because he doesn’t want to take responsibility for his dumbass hate speech. Maybe next time don’t say you committed a hate crime without thinking about the effects it has on the community. As far as his family, I feel sorry for his kids but he is the one who put his family in this position when he said that gross stuff with a bucket of cow’s blood and whatever. Any activists want to get in touch with me to discuss this as far as how these court cases impact public policy here’s my email.
riqosuuaave@gmail.com
What Cameron went through is tragic. She’s a Christian and had nothing to gain by coming forward.
For those who didn’t read the other articles for context,
#JamesMai is an #OChousing Commissioner who posted on Instagram that he vandalized a Hindu owned Indian restaurant with a bucket of cow’s blood and threw the head of a dead cow outside. Hindus do consider the cow to be sacred. Mai is a sorry ass piece of shit.
Investigations revealed there was no record of such an incident (which would have been reported, had it happened) but this is the grossest, nastiest, most psychotic thing posted by a public official EVER.
As a result of coming forward, Cameron suffered horrific threats #cyberstalking by #irvinejamesmai and his thugs. Mai doxxed her, posting her home address w/ what reads like suggestions to rape her. (Turtle Soup)
For their part, Hindus as a community haven’t stood by her very much. Some individual Hindus seem to have, but no organizations. Other Hindus just wanted to elevate themselves. What goes up must come down. Oops, #aartikaushalchopra fell faster than a domino.
For anyone too lazy to do their research, Aarti Chopra knew there was no hate crime. She’s a climber who wanted an easy shoo-in to a City of Irvine appointment. Then Mai’s trolls started targeting her and she cries like a baby. Maybe shouldn’t have made up that story about him being a #mainorattractedperson.
Facts: Aarti and the Hindutva fanatics were looking for a quick and easy way to get Mai off the Irvine Child Care Committee, so they came up with the tactic of painting Mai as a pedophile. They even created the hashtag #jamesmainorattractedperson.
There was more than enough reason to kick Mai’s racist ass out, but Aarti was becoming more impatient with each passing day, so Team Aarti accelerated things with these idiotic posts and comments.
There was even a Hindu who created the handle jamesmaiisapedophile@gmail.com. These fools blew their own cause by dragging themselves down.
When Mai couldn’t figure out who to blame, he targeted Cameron with the restraining order.
She now regrets coming forward with the IG post, given the threats and humiliation she suffered and most recently the fake civil harassment claim.
She’s a survivor of Sex Trafficking and didn’t sign up for this abuse ! Aarti Chopra and James Mai should go duke it out in court. Leave Cameron out of this.
Yes, the temporary restraining order against Cameron was totally dissolved.
Not to be deterred, #James Mai then had a female friend, #SuzannaStopaniFlores aka #SuzannaCooperStopani stalking Cameron’s friends online. She started sending unsolicited messages to Cameron’s friends/ followers on social media practically the day after Mai lost the hearing.
On Sunday before Memorial Day, #StalkerSuzanna was named as the suspect in an Irvine Police Report. The case is still under investigation. Suzanna apparently thinks she has some immunity because her brother (whose last name is Cooper) works as a deputy sheriff. It remains to be seen how much this will benefit her, but it makes for a cute defense.
Mai himself has not mentioned Cameron publicly. But concerned individuals monitoring his Twitter were able to establish mutual links between Mai, Suzanna Cooper – Stopani – Flores and someone named Ava Liu, or calling themselves that. It was long believed this Ava Liu is likely to be #NikiMai.
The most important progress that was made is the person who posed online as “Shan Khan” has been tentatively identified as Charles Hwang (Though not by the authorities, at least not quite yet). There is a fair amount of evidence to back it up, though.
This is a significant development because the person masquerading as Shan Khan is the author of those horrific “turtle soup” posts.
In case noone remembers, this same Charles Hwang is who commented on the other James Mai thread about being a member of the Libertarian Party, and even claimed to know Leon Sit. Maybe Mr Sit will kindly assist in positively identifying Charles Hwang.
Through all this ghoulish insanity, #OCSheriff Don Barnes continues to stand by James Mai. This is his first term as sheriff and will hopefully be his last.
That is all the update for now.
If you have any tips that will help identify these criminals please contact the Irvine Police Department. You can remain anonymous. The case is being worked by Detective Steve Meyer in the Threat Management Unit. His email is snmyer at cityofirvine dot org.
You can remain anonymous. All leads will be investigated.
To those Hindus who stirred up a hornet’s nest with the #MainorAttractedPerson, please come forward too. These are friends of #AartiKaushalChopra, and while she herself didnt use the term, there are dozens of emails proving she was happy to spread the theory that #JamesMaiisaPedophile, even though there was not really any proof of that. Apparently, the rationale was that a pedophile can’t serve on the Child Care Committee, so that was their strategy. It backfired miserably, and Aarti herself just resigned from that Committe after being appointed less than six months ago. It also caused a lot of problems for Cameron because Mai accused her of inventing that narrative.
Email threads from September of last year to January of this year show that Cameron wasn’t included on the emails. It was people associated with Aarti Chopra.
At time of writing, Mai remains on the OC Housing Authority Commission. Their Annual Plan was never appproved by HUD and they continue to cancel their monthly meetings, without explanation.
Correction, the IPD Detective’s email is snmeyer@cityofirvine.org. You can remain anonymous. All credible leads will be investigated. Please help Cameron get Justice.
Agreed with Not Aspiring Politicians, but some context behind the name would help. Apparently it was lost on even Eric Neshanian, who was present that night and must’ve heard the faux pas by VM Kim.
To put it into context, Not Aspiring Politicians are some Irvine R residents who (besides being disgusted with James Mai) are sick of Tammy Kim being a ding-dong. Watch the granicus video from the last Irvine City Council meeting where Tammy butts heads with Larry and Kathleen over their attempt to enhance Transparency for the public by making Commission meetings available on demand. It’s the next to last item on the agenda and it made her the butt of jokes.
#notaspiringpoliticians