Andy Lehrer with a masked anarchist
I received a very ominous threat back in January- it was posted in the comments section on my story criticising an article by Michael Laxer of the Socialist Party of Ontario. Laxer is a member of the SPO, and was a candidate in the last election. He also seems to have some serious problems with free speech– something that Ontario’s voters should be aware of.
The threat said that, because the person writing it had access to the voter rolls (including people’s addresses), I as an ‘enemy of the people’ could be tracked down to my home. I looked-up the IP address, noticed that it was at a nearby Internet cafe, and quickly made my way over. There I saw Andy Lehrer, a man who is registered with Elections Ontario as the head of the SPO. Ever since then he’s been trying to intimidate me to take down my story- unfortunately for Lehrer, I don’t scare so easily.
This morning Lehrer took another (equally pitiful) shot at me…
I received a letter in my email today from a Toronto law firm. The letter was not very well-written, it included a couple of typos, and the information in it was (as expected) full of BS. The firm that wrote the letter is a part of the LegalShield program– people can pay $26 per month and member firms will provide free advice and will even send out letters. Considering how poorly the letter was researched, it’s quite likely that Lehrer is using LegalShield- this looms more like the work of someone doing a quick job rather than a thorough investigation.
The letter is addressed to Rackspace (and I’m cc’d)- the company that hosts the server for this website. The letter’s first mistake occurs in the first sentence:
“We have been consulted by Andy Lehrer regarding certain comments made regarding his activities on your social media website.”
As I explained, Rackspace is a hosting company- not a social media website. The rules for Rackspace are quite different than for a Social Media site- they’re hosted in the US, and the courts have already made decisions that hosting companies aren’t responsible for the content on servers in their data centres. Oops!
The next sentence in the letter is rather confusing:
“We understand that you have published or caused false remarks regarding Mr. Lehrer’s whereabouts, his picture and remarks about his ethnic heritage information on your website.”
First, it’s my website- not Rackspaces. Next, I saw Andy at the Internet cafe that night and don’t have an ounce of doubt it was him- he’s even registered to an address just a few blocks down the road. The part that confused me was how I made false remarks about Andy’s ‘ethnic heritage’. The only thing I said was that he looks to me to be of East European background. I don’t see the problem with it- and Andy’s original last name (Bratu) does originate from Romania.
The next paragraph is where things start getting really bizarre:
“We further note you have linked him to various political parties in a defamatory manner. We have the following comments to make: Firstly; Mr. Lehrer is entitled to join any political party of his choice as it is his right under”
Huh? Totally bizarre, the only political party I linked Lehrer to was the SPO- he’s listed on Elections Ontario’s website as such. And though I do believe it’s not a point of pride to be related to the SPO, I never made any statements saying that. Regardless, how can it be defamatory to say that Lehrer’s a member of a political party when he’s listed as the leader?
But, wait, there’s more!
“Secondly, your picture of a person you purport to be Mr. Lehrer associating with an acarchist [sic], has in the background what appears to be a photo shopped picture of someone with a scarf over his mouth. Although the Cooperative Anarchist Party of Canada is a legitimate political party, your branding Mr. Lehrer as an “anarchist” in the ordinary meaning of the word is defamatory.”
First, there’s the spelling mistake- I’d expect more from a lawyer, but perhaps not if it’s a $26 lawyer. Next, I challenge anyone to show where I called Lehrer an anarchist- it never happened. And, last, the claim that the picture is photoshopped is complete hogwash. I’ve shared the picture with a number of people, all concur that the picture was not edited. It seems to be another cheap ‘Lehreresque’ trick to me.
It’s obvious to me that Lehrer’s intent of this letter is to try an intimidate my server hosting company. I’ve already talked with them about this situation, and I don’t believe they will be taking this site down anytime soon. Besides, the threats made towards them completely conflict with reality- a server hosting company cannot be held liable for the content on the servers. It would be different if they were a social media site though.
Anyhow, great try Andy- better luck next time. You’ve already made enough mistakes with your conflicting claims of where you were that night. And, you forget the little detail that I have a witness who can testify on my behalf that you were there that night.
Jerk…
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HA HA
Author
Yeah, Lehrer’s not the brightest bulb on the string- is he?
No, but Lehrer IS persistent, annoying and dislikes anyone’s free speech but his own. This will not be his last “try”. That photoshop claim is maybe the most ridiculous item in his letter. I’ve seen other photos of that time and Martinez/Ruttle has a the same scarf over his face. Know that M/R is now a lawyer.
Author
This is his third try now- and his third loss. He keeps making mistakes- like the conflict with where he was at the time and his two different stories, and now with the lie about the photoshopped picture. Each time he makes one of these mistakes he weakens his position for the next time. I wish him good luck with that…
Three failures doesn’t stop Lehrer. He distracts himself with the computer hassling because if he had any spare time he’d be whacking himself over the head with a frying pan and calling out “I’m a loser” repeatedly.
Poor @AndyLehrer on Twitter. He’s been compelled to protect his tweets now.
Author
Ha! I guess more and more people are seeing the reality behind this fool…
http://fotoforensics.com/analysis.php?id=895ce8cdcf5392842f2c3d2d5c57df80e87a6427.44377
Ahhh I see that’s where those photoshopped remarks came from. Well there’s the error level analysis for anybody thinking that there’s any chance of it being photoshopped, it clearly isn’t there is no “rainbowing” which is a staple for things saved in that format in photoshop.
Also, the Error Level Analysis (ELA) would be DARKER, any edits would show up LIGHTER in the image if it were photoshopped then saved in a different application like paintbucket, plus the “rainbowing” effect would not be properly scrubbed from the image under those conditions. There are instructions on the linked site that explain this to anybody curious about it.
The fact that Lehrer has to manufacture lies suggests to me that he is guilty, get that man the fuck out of politics and activism. Has this wretched government not done anything at all about him what-so-ever yet? The disappointment this system produces is unrelenting and consistent! Watch they’ll leave that piece of trash running around pulling his crap for months (if not indefinitely and just pretend you didn’t just catch him in an atrocious criminal act).
Lehrer aka Bratu has been pulling this “crap” for decades. The government won’t stop him. Only diabetes might, if it doesn’t get a lawyer’s letter telling it to stop.
Author
You’re tempting me to send him a big box of chocolates…
It is like the lawsuit Lehrer/Bratu filed just to get http://www.poverty-activist-toronto.ca/andy-lehrer/top.html banned from Google.
The lawsuit was abandoned as per this court document http://www.poverty-activist-toronto.ca/andy-lehrer/documents.pdf but the site remains deindexed from Google. I would assume he used the same baseless lawsuit filing to try to get the webhost to remove the website as he is trying with you.
It was like the $500,000 lawsuit Bratu/Lehrer filed against the OUSA around 1995 to bankrupt the student association at QueensU so the Canadian Federation of Students could come in and replace it. The lawsuit had little merit but the financial burden of trying to defend yourself against these frivolous and vexation lawsuits are meant to wearout and bankrupt his victims.
I found the same picture online. It may be an old picture, reported to be from 2004, but it is not a photoshopped picture. He sure looks a lot older now, but perhaps 8 years of hard drinking in beerhalls can do that to some people.
If you want to identify a photoshopped picture here is one
http://socialistpartyofontario.biz.ly/socialist-party-ontario.gif
It seems a common practice is to threaten to have websites people don’t like taken down. Is it a founding principle of the Socialist Party of Ontario to silence everybody they disagree with forcably or by intimidation? For example here is an anonymous posting on the UnderCoverKity blog:
http://undercoverkity.wordpress.com/2013/02/08/1953/
“RSU Says:
February 8, 2013 at 6:27 pm
People might take you a bit more seriously if you knew proper grammar or correct spelling. Are you too lazy to use a spell checker?
Let me be Frank. No, let’s not be Frank or people would know I was a paranoid schizophrenic who wouldn’t take my meds!
This blog will be banned very soon and you will have to start all over again just like your lunatic friend Greg.
You should have been banned from the whole Ryerson campus and not just the RSU. Let’s hope that is arranged for next semester.
I would hate to see if you completely lost it, more than your usual paranoid lunatic fantasies and ranting. Why you haven’t been locked away for life in Penetanguishine I can’t imagine.”
No wonder people post websites like http://socialistpartyofontario.biz.ly and http://www.causepimps.ca/andy-lehrer/top.html to warn people about this person, his history and his tactics. And why did he change his name from Andre Robert Bratu to Andre Robert Bratu Lehrer in 2000? I think all readers will want to save the content of these websites before Mr. Lehrer gets them all taken down under false pretenses with filed lawsuits that get abandoned but appear to be filed only to intimidate webhost companies.
If you check Google you will see he loves to get himself into the papers. And if you check Twitter he loves to talk up journalists, which I bet is to befriend them to try to get into the papers. That sure is the sign of a narcissist. Maybe people should be following these exploits on Twitter to warn the journalists of this person’s history and name change?
An interesting observation was made on this blog yesterday
http://www.genuinewitty.com/2013/02/03/chilling-effects-andy-lehrer-is-back-up-to-his-old-ineffective-tricks-again-feat-elections-ontario/#more-13341
“Mark Brill victim
February 8, 2013 at 07:14
According to
http://www.poverty-activist-toronto.ca/andy-lehrer/contributed%20about%20lehrer.html
Andy Lehrer has a love of attacking those least able to defend themselves speciailising in going after old people and the disabled.
That Bay Street condo owner does not go after bank presidents only those who unable to defend themselves whose work he can profit off of.
He has a cadre of supporters to attack his next victims from his takeover and pillaging of student radio station CKLN”
http://real-ckln.blogspot.ca
How much has this one person set back real activism over the past 2 decades under his various names and incarnations? What does he get out of this long past of destruction? And who funds all of this?
These two comments were posted by someone impersonating an organization called OUSA – the Ontario Undergraduate Student Alliance. I’m not sure why they are trying to involve OUSA in this but this sort of fraudulent impersonation is inappropriate.
Author
As far as I know, OUSA could mean anything- hard to say that the person is impersonating anything…
The post at February 9, 2013 at 10:44 is by “OUSA” and talks about a lawsuit against the OUSA (the Ontario Undergraduate Student Alliance) so it actually is quite clear they are trying to impersonate a real organization.
Author
Well then, it’s good that you made it clear for us- thanks! Oh, and how does one impersonate an organization- are you one of those people who thinks that corporations should have human rights?
You don’t suppose that LC is…?
I think everybody should see the PBS POV documentary Better This World
http://www.pbs.org/pov/betterthisworld/
about supposed formerly left wing activist Brandon Darby
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandon_Darby
who was an FBI informant and is accused in the documentary of entrapping two young men with no previous criminal history, Bradley Crowder and David McKay, and then being a witness in court against them.
Better This World was the 2012 Winner of the Writers Guild Award for Documentary Screenplay.
According to the documentary Brandon Darby who egged on the rookie activists to commit violent acts they never got around to actually committing now makes his living as a right wing talk show host!
Does it remind you of anybody?
Author
I’ll make sure I get myself a copy of that- thanks! We should also remember the Grant Bristow affair, and Lehrer’s participation in that farce…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grant_Bristow
Author
I watched Better This World- and, wow, does it ever remind me of what’s going on here in Canada! All of these ‘leaders’ guiding people to do bad things that will get them into trouble- but, somehow, the leaders don’t end up in-trouble, and the people they are guiding do.
Anyone who’s considering committing an act of violence on someone else’s encouragement needs to watch this movie…
Mark of an organized crime leader. Never anywhere near the crime, drugs or money. Maybe American federal prosecutors could use RICO on them.
Author
I’ve just come across an interesting article about Brandon Darby, it tells a bit different story than the video (doesn’t talk about the entrapment part), but he gives an in-detail description about how the anarchists take advantage of the crowds. I showed this to a couple of people from Occupy Toronto and they totally recognized the tactics.
I should have an interesting story on this soon…
http://thebrennerbrief.com/2013/02/18/the-black-bloc-exposed-our-chilling-interview-with-brandon-darby/
Completely off topic, but still I would really love if you could find some connection to some of the stupidity Montreal is subject to, including one idiot using a flare gun in the Palais de Congress, (aka Montreal’s “Canada Place”).
I would also note that the Red Square Movement, which was strongly supported by both the Unions and the PQ, helped to toppled the provincial Liberals and elect, by a slim minority, the PQs, who have just voted today to focus all activities on promoting sovereignty. Of course for every Red Square, and now Red Feather, at these protests there are the obligatory FTP/Blac Bloc idiots.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/story/2013/02/09/plan-nord-protests-montreal.html
Once again, sorry to be off topic but not really because I think you may have some of the knowledge needed to show the connection with these groups.
(Would it help if I told you I saw HW at one of these protests last yr? I could be wrong because I have only seen her in pics, but when I saw the person there my first thought was “Holy cow that is H!!” And I believe she was in Toronto at the time so defineately in the area.)
I find it also a little odd that a lawyer would use a slang term like “photo shopped” and would say something like “appears to be” in a letter.
I would make sense that LC was Lehrer or one of his lackeys.
I can’t see anybody associated with the Ontario Undergraduate Students’ Association wanting to do anything that would clearly benefit Lehrer after
http://andylehrer.0catch.com/Andy-Lehrer-QueensU.pdf
@Lurker, that site doesn’t allow hotlinking to the individual documents but can be found at
http://andylehrer.0catch.com/
and click on
Andy Lehrer sues OUSA
It appears he likes to file frivolous and vexatious lawsuits likely with no intention to ever carry through with them, but only to use with Google to get the sites banned by Google, and to use to get bloghosts and webhosts to delete the websites/blogs of those at all critical of him.
Here is one such lawsuit that was never carried through on
http://www.causepimps.ca/andy-lehrer/documents.pdf
I was looking for that document and found it at
http://web.archive.org/liveweb/http://andylehrer.ed3i.com/Andy-Lehrer-QueensU.pdf