Scott Clearman Gets His Hackles Up

A few days ago, I put up a post about a bow tie-wearing lawyer out of Houston, Scott Clearman, who has filed a lawsuit against Stream Energy and its founder, Rob Snyder. In the suit, Clearman alleges that Stream is a pyramid scheme. Well, now Clearman has pointed his blunderbuss at yours truly. Yesterday, I got this e-mail from him:

Please understand that any communications or financial transactions between or among your company, Tim Rogers or any of the defendants mentioned in the attached complaint, or their agents, may be evidence in a federal lawsuit. Under state and federal law, you may have a duty to preserve such evidence and the destruction of such evidence, even if inadvertent or consistent with normal procedures, may be unlawful. Please consult your attorney about such obligations. My comment also concern any email or other communication l sent on this date or thereafter.

The same applies personally to Tim Rogers.

Please also do not consider this as an attempt to infringement on your First Amendment rights. You are of course free to speak your mind within the First Amendment, but its great and inviolate shield cannot serve to hide facts. Call me a clown, or whatever, but stay within the First Amendment.

I note that Tim Rogers is a friend of Rob Snyder. I note also that he was the author of the glowing article about Stream in your magazine. We are determined to know how close Tim and Rob are, and if Stream or any of the other defendants have compensated Tim for his work.

Tim, as an executive editor, I understand that you have the authority to receive and respond to this email on behalf of D Magazine. I want you to confirm this fact by the close of business today. If you cannot or will not, I will take other measures to inform your folks of the contents of this email.

This makes me happy. Because even though I noted in the story I wrote about Stream that I am a friend of Rob’s, and even though I mentioned our friendship in the earlier post about the lawsuit, I’ve sometimes wondered exactly how close I am to him. If Scott Clearman can help me define my relationship with Rob, I’d forever be in his debt.

As for financial transactions between me and the defendents, I must admit that there are, in fact, such transactions. Stream is my electricity provider. I write them a check every month.