In Part Umpteen of the endless struggle by Matthew Inman AKA The Oatmeal vs. weird lawyer Charles Carreon, we find our hero beset by the accusation that he is impersonating a charity for collecting a large amount of money and giving it to the NWF and ACS. ““If IndieGoGo pays Inman the money in the Charitable Fund, and Inman personally donates the money to NWF and ACS, he will be unjustly enriched by receiving a large tax write-off that should properly be allocated pro-rata to the 14,406 small donors who contributed to the Charitable Fund,” wrote Carreon. Yeah. He really thinks differently than you and me.
To recap, Carreon asked for $20,000 in damages from Inman for insulting Funnyjunk, a site whose users stole Inman’s comics. Inman wrote he would collect the $20,000 in cash and photograph it with a crude representation of the lawyer’s mother sexing up a bear. A few days later, Inman had collected over $200,000 for the National Wildlife Fund and the American Cancer Society. Then the lawyer got weird. He wanted to sue the charities and now wants to prevent the money from being dispersed.
“Pilfering very small amounts of money from very large numbers of people is a stock mechanism for conducting computer and Internet fraud. Preventing Inman from exploiting the giving public in such a fashion is in the public interest,” he wrote in some new filings. Inman responded on his blog, writing:
Once the money is moved, I still plan on withdrawing $211k in cash and taking a photo to send to Charles Carreon and FunnyJunk, along with the drawing of Funnyjunk’s mother. After the photo is mailed I’ll be sending checks to the charities. I’ll also post receipts as well as public confirmations from both charities that they received every penny that was promised.
Is all the money going to the National Wildlife Federation and the American Cancer Society?
Yes. Previously I stated that because the amount raised was so much larger than expected I was going to divide the money into four charities instead of two, but unfortunately Carreon’s lawsuit claims that I’m holding an “illicit fundraiser” and not donating money where I said I would. To avoid further litigation with him, I decided to split the money between the original two charities. If Carreon wanted a minor victory, he got one here.
What do we know about the case right now? The Oatmeal will not cave. The lawyeris kind of wacky (he actually commissioned the image here). And all of this putzing around is preventing Inman from making his great comics. Everybody loses, especially Carreon because after this no one will want to touch his practice with a ten foot naked bear.
Read more : Funnyjunk’s Lawyer, Charles Carreon, Is Charging The Oatmeal With “Impersonating A Charity”
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