Birther fined $177K

[Unidyne]

Brooklyn Judge Arthur Schack dismissed a lawsuit recently as “fanciful, delusional and irrational,” before fining the person that filed the lawsuit, Christopher Earl Strunk, a whopping $177,000 essentially for wasting everyone’s time.

Apparently Strunk has been the author of multiple lawsuits that resulted in dismissal before, making this somewhat of a pattern of his. This particular one listed the New York Board of Elections, President Barack Obama and others as defendants, and attempted to disqualify Barack Obama from presidential candidacy by establishing that he is not a citizen of the United States.

The result? Being mocked by a judge and in the media, not to mention a huge fine.

http://www.addictinginfo.org/2013/04/04 ... lyn-judge/

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/nationa ... z2PWtC7Bya

[Pottapaug1938]

He says "this thing is going to be overturned and I'm not going to have to pay a dime" (or a close facsimile thereof). File that under "Doubling Down On Stupid".

[notorial dissent]

Strunk is known in NY, at least, as a serial filer, the list of people he hasn't sued is probably far shorter than of the ones he has, all with the same result. He is also a serial loser. At this point he has pretty well been declared a vexatious litigant, and barred from the NY courts. The likelihood of him complying, about the same as his actually winning one of these. I don't know if NY has a frivolous appeal sanction or not, hopefully they will find one for his benefit as he will almost certainly appeal all of this. The fines are more symbolic than anything else since is reputedly penniless. I guess time will tell.

[ArthurWankspittle]

From following other birther-debunking sites, Strunk isn't yet a "vexatious litigant" but he's heading that way. He also is believed to be worth next to zero, as he's tried an In Forma Pauperis claim, which IIRC failed for legal reasons not because the "pauperis" bit was untrue.

[wserra]

Strunk is a minor legend around here, and it's pretty inexplicable why he has not yet AFAIK been declared a vexatious litigant.

I think the case Arthur is talking about is Strunk's attempt to intervene in the Acorn litigation in NYED. The motion to intervene is 55 pages of woe-is-me, I'm-a-working-class-hero, everything-everybody-does-affects-me-by-damn nonsense. Judge Gershon denies it in a one-page order. Strunk appeals, along with a motion for leave to appeal IFP (in forma pauperis). The govt opp makes it clear that Strunk didn't exactly tell the Court the whole story. Denied. Appeal dismissed, failure to pay the filing fee.

The action was eventually discontinued, as Acorn went belly-up. VICTORY!

BTW, Judge Schack (who sanctioned Strunk in the birfer lawsuit) is a kinda colorful guy himself. He's also something of a hero to a fair number of people whose homes went into foreclosure.