Sedona Law 4 by Dave Daren (ready to read books TXT) 📕

threw in a few bystanders to make comments I suspected were heavily edited.

“But,” Vicki said, “The thing is, you actually said nothing, and he’s trying to turn nothing into something.”

“This is the problem with free speech,” I said. “You can do that. That’s why in actuality I don’t support the bill. Although I would never go public with it, especially after that.”

“This, though,” Vicki said, “is straight up libel.”

“Textbook,” I said. “But what I don’t understand, is why The Herald would publish it.”

“And why would they deliberately misrepresent a lawyer?” Vicki mused.

“I don’t know,” I said. “the’ve got to be blackmailed, paid, or just straight up stupid.”

“That’s fucked up,” Landon said. “I think it’s cause you’re getting too close. This is so cool!”

“That video is not cool,” I said. “That’s my reputation, my career.”

“No,” he said. “This means we’re onto something. We’re getting shut down. Discredited. This is what they do. It’s like, you know, that’s why they killed George Bush.”

“George Bush?” I asked. “What?”

“Yeah,” he said. “He was about to go public, he was going to blow the whole cover off the Illuminati, and so they killed him. Michael Jackson, too. Bill Cosby, Bill O’Reilly, all the stuff the women said about them, all made up.”

“Sexual assault is not made up,” Vicki piped up defensively.

“No,” he said. “Sexual assault is terrible, and women shouldn’t have to put up with that. No one should have to put up with that. But, what I’m saying is that the elites, they plant women to seduce these men early on in their careers. Then, they get photos, videos, taped calls, and whatever. And then, the elites own them, and use it to blackmail them their whole careers. If they ever want to go ‘off message,’ then the elites’ leak ruins them, and discredits them.”

“I think you’ve watched too many movies,” I said. “This is just a sloppy filmmaker that walked into a murder investigation at the right, or wrong, time. It’s not anything more than that.”

“You’re not seeing the whole picture,” he insisted with a pound of his fist on the table. “This is what I’m trying to tell you. This is what they’re trying to do to you, to us. We couldn’t expose the illuminati unchallenged. Now, they know, and it’s a whole new game. Everything’s changed.”

I pulled out my phone, I didn’t have time for this.

“You’ve got Matt Chelmi’s number, right?” I asked Landon.

“Yeah,” he said and pulled it up.

“Good,” I said as I dialed it. “That video is coming down.”

“The Herald,” a receptionist answered.

I sighed, I thought Landon had his personal number.

“Matt Chelmi, please,” I said.

“I’m sorry,” the receptionist said. “Mr. Chelmi is not available.”

“Uh-huh,” I said. “That’s fine. This is Henry Irving. Would you mind giving me that address to your office? I’m on my way to the court to file a defamation suit, and I just need to know where to send the subpoena. That address is…”

There was a brief silence. “I’ll get Mr. Chelmi right away.”

“I thought you might say that,” I chuckled as she put me on hold.

It took several minutes before Matt answered. He sounded flustered.

“Look,” Matt Chelmi told me. “I didn’t see the story until just now. We don’t want any trouble. We’re a Starbright affiliate, and I really, really, really would like to stay off Iakova’s radar. I cannot tell you how much I do not want Iakova on my ass.”

“I can understand that,” I said. “So why was it posted?”

“It was Jerry Steele that posted that,” he said. “We were unaware of the content.”

“How does that work?” I asked.

“Jerry’s a freelance reporter for us,” Matt said, “which sounds a lot more sophisticated than it is. He was our news editor years ago, and then he went indie with his video production studio.”

“I see,” I said. “I thought you guys had better editorial standards than that.”

“And we do,” Matt sighed. “It’s just our Herald family was proud of him for following his dreams and all of that, so we were trying to be supportive. When he left the team, we arranged that he could keep his login and post things as a legacy alum kind of thing.”

“Ah,” I said.

“And it’s worked both ways,” he said. “He’s always been a great videographer, and Steele Productions can from time to time capture some edgy subjects. So he’s had carte blanche with the site. We’ve got our own editorial flow we’ve got our reporters and editors working on, but whatever Jerry does, I don’t keep track of. We don’t pay him, so it’s all about the exposure for him, and getting his material a following.”

“What about Iakova? Jerry just posts libelous rants about the boss?” I asked.

Matt laughed. “You don’t know Iakova that well, do you?”

“I’m learning,” I said.

“Iakova is his own species of rich old coot,” he said.

I laughed. “I’m starting to understand that.”

“He doesn’t care what we publish,” he said. “As long as it gets pageviews. You’ve heard of the bill he and John Malone are engineering, right?”

“Yeah,” I said. “The anti-censorship bill.”

“Absolutely,” he said. “That’s the way he sees media. He doesn’t give a shit, and no one loves Iakova more than Iakova. So, if he’s at the center of a controversy, he practically wets his pants with glee.”

“I get that about him,” I said. When I spoke with Marvin earlier, he said the case was bad publicity, but he comes off as an ‘all press is good press’ type of guy. So did he say the bad publicity comment to seem fake sympathetic to me?

“To hear him talk about media,” Matt laughed. “He thinks all the world’s a game, one giant media game. He talks about it all the time, ‘playing the game,’ or