On January 19, 2023, I received an email from Alexander Trembicki Esq. of the law firm of Lynch Trembicki Boynton of Milford CT.
Attorney Trembicki wrote to inform me that his client planned to sue me if I did not retract what I wrote about him.
His client is Edward Nusbaum Esq, of Westport CT.
Attorney Trembicki wrote.
Attorney Alexander Trembicki
Dear Mr. Parlato:
This office represents the Law Offices of Edward Nusbaum, PC and Edward Nusbaum individually. It has come to our attention that you have made and published a number of defamatory statements concerning our clients through your so-called Frank Report. You have published false and defamatory statements including accusations of criminal misconduct and malfeasance relating not only to Mr. Nusbaum but also as to the undersigned.
You have published defamatory statements as to Mr. Nusbaum ethics, professionalism, and reputation.
In the comments section of your publication, you have misappropriated the names and identities of “commenters” to add to the defamatory statements.
In one instance you attribute a comment made under the name of my client’s son. Other “comments” were from judges of the Connecticut Superior Court, Supreme Court, and family law attorneys, who clearly did not weigh in on your report.
These publications are libelous and meet the definition of libel per se. We believe that these statements have been made maliciously and intentionally and as a result of an improper or unjustifiable motive.
We hereby demand, pursuant to Connecticut General Statutes §52-237, that you retract the defamatory statements that you have made as to my client and me, in as public a manner as that in which they were made no later than Friday, January 27, 2023, including on the Frank Report.
This retraction must occur on all platforms in which they were published. Your failure to do so will establish that the statements were made maliciously. My clients intend to bring claims against you for actual and punitive damages, pursuant to applicable Connecticut law.
We further demand that you cease and desist from the further publication of defamatory and libelous statements as to my client and the undersigned. Your failure to do so will cause us to review all of our legal options. You should note that Connecticut’s jury pool is not afraid to award damages to internet provocateurs who publish false and malicious information about their subjects. See WilUam Sherlach et al v Alex Jones et al, UWY-CV18-6046437-S, pending in the Judicial District of Waterbury.
Additionally, it is my client’s intention to make Judge Arcaro aware of your conduct. I am sure that he will find it interesting when he considers an appropriate sentence for you. I am sure he will weigh it along with his order for you to undergo an anger management evaluation for the assault complaint filed in Monroe County, Florida, in March of 2022.
Very, truly yours,
Alexander Trembicki
MK10ART’s painting of Edward Nusbaum is not libelous, it is art.
That was an interesting letter. I especially liked the last paragraph. Naturally, I had to answer the specific allegations.
However, I do not see any false statements about Mr. Nusbaum. I hope readers will help find anything defamatory, libelous, or even untrue about the less than savory Wesport lawyer.
Here is my email response to AttorneyTrembicki.
RE: Edward Nusbaum’s (Your Client) Baseless Libel Claims
Request for Specification of Objectionable Statements
Rule 11 Notice
Offer of Compromise
Dear Mr. Trembicki:
I am in receipt of your letter dated January 19, 2023.
As you may know, I am an investigative journalist. While it is true that your client, Edward Nusbaum, has been the subject of articles I recently published, I disagree with your client’s claims of libel and libel per se.
I disagree that I “published false and defamatory statements including accusations of criminal misconduct and malfeasance” related to Mr. Nusbaum and yourself, or that I published defamatory statements regarding Mr. Nusbaum’s ethics, professionalism, and reputation.
The Frank Report is a Newsgathering and Reporting Outlet
The Frank Report is a journalistic media outlet engaged in newsgathering and reporting. I have been engaged in journalism, newsgathering, and media production for 35 years. You can read my biography on the Frank Report website and elsewhere.
Additionally, the Frank Report provides opinions and commentary on newsworthy issues.
In your letter of January 19, 2023, you did not provide me with any specific statements that I have made and/or published that you claim are defamatory and false. You have not made any showing that my journalistic product was produced and/or disseminated in bad faith or with actual malice.
The Frank Report vets information and all statements are based on facts. The Frank Report and all its contributors, including myself, act in good faith when reporting news and disseminating information. We hold ourselves to the highest industry ethical standards. See, e.g., the attached from the Committee on Publication Ethics.
Your client requested a retraction based on libel and falsehood. We take this request very seriously.
In this case, your client failed to identify with specificity which statements are objectionable and the reasons for each. Unless and until we receive specifications of your client’s objections, we cannot take further action in good faith and due diligence.
I believe that none of the statements in the reporting concerning your client, Mr. Nusbaum, were actionable defamation. They either are substantially true, are not “of or concerning” Mr. Nusbaum, are not reasonably susceptible to defamatory meaning, or are mere opinions rather than assertions of fact.
The statements are not libel as a matter of law. See Held v. Scott Silver & Silver & Assocs., No. 3:10-cv-00992 (CSH), 2013 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 148514, at *25 (D. Conn. Oct. 16, 2013); Lopos v. City of Meriden Bd. of Educ., 3:04-CV-00352, 2006 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 32469, 2006 WL 1438612 at *8 (D. Conn. May 16, 2006) (citing Grossman v. Computer Curriculum Corp., 131 F.Supp. 2d 299, 312 (D.Conn. 2000)); see also Daley v. Aetna Life and Casualty Co.,, 249 Conn. 766, 795, 734 A.2d 112 (Conn. 1999) (“To be actionable, the statement in question must convey an objective fact, as generally, a defendant cannot be held liable for expressing a mere opinion.”).
If there are statements of fact to which you can present evidence to show are demonstrably false, please present the evidence. If the facts and circumstances warrant it, Frank Report may issue a retraction.
Retractions are issued in certain circumstances:
There is clear evidence that the statements are unreliable
Plagiarism
The statements have previously been published elsewhere without proper attribution to previous sources or disclosure to the editor, permission to republish, or justification
The submission contains material or data without authorization for use
Copyright has been infringed, or there is some other serious legal issue (e.g., libel, privacy)
Statements have been published solely on the basis of a compromised or manipulated peer review process
The author(s) failed to disclose a major competing interest (aka, conflict of interest)
Retraction may not be necessary for certain instances:
There is no reason to doubt the validity of the statements
The main statements of the work are still reliable, and correction could sufficiently address errors or concerns
There is inconclusive evidence to support retraction, or we are awaiting additional information
The Third-Party Comments on the Frank Report are Protected Under 47 U.S.C. § 230
With respect to the “Comments” section of the Frank Report website, neither the Frank Report nor I am legally responsible for these comments. The Frank Report’s comments and interactive message board place all communications within the ambit of 47 U.S.C. § 230’s immunity protections.
Additionally, 47 U.S.C.S. § 230(e)(3) states: “No cause of action may be brought, and no liability may be imposed under any State or local law that is inconsistent with this section.”
Any claims or complaints you may have regarding the comments on the interactive message board, you should take them up with the third-party users themselves.
To the extent that you make any claims against the Frank Report or me, where we are entitled to § 230 immunity, said claims are frivolous as a matter of law. If you choose to proceed with litigation against me, I will ask for dismissal and Rule 11 sanctions upon my removal to Federal Court after proper jurisdiction has been obtained.
Claims That Smack of Extortion
In the January 19, 2023, letter, you made claims I would not expect from a member of the Bar.
Please write and do whatever you and your client wish to do.
However, I do not know what adverse effect Mr. Nusbaum’s plan to write to, call or communicate with a federal judge, whose name you did not even bother to spell correctly, will have on me.
Perhaps judges are different in Connecticut, but I fail to see how any judge can assess or infer alleged bad conduct from the fact that I, as a professional journalist, wrote stories about an attorney who has had numerous claims by clients of price gouging, bullying, wildly uncontrollable anger, malpractice and misconduct.
Furthermore, consider the extortionate manner by which you made this threat: It was done before you provided me with a single specific statement that you claim is libelous.
Consider your conduct, Sir. You write me demanding I retract anything and everything without any specificity, or you will sue me and threaten me by telling the judge.
These are the actions of a bully.
As for anger management, when, on October 17, 2022, your client, an attorney, called me up screaming and threatening me when I was in Nashville and revealing his client’s confidences and acting like a raving lunatic, I made a recording of the conversation since I was not sure if he was going to commit a felonious act which I would be obliged to report.
I will gladly play the recording I made, and I believe you will be impressed with two things:
That your client may need anger management
If you heard this recording, and did not know who it was, and were later told it was made by a member of the bar, you might seek to have him disbarred under your ethical obligations to report misconduct of attorneys.
The recording alone is probably damning enough for me to file a grievance against Mr. Nusbaum.
Mr. Nusbaum’s literal threats and unethical disclosures made during his phone conversation of October 17, plus those made recently by your client and conveyed through your letter of January 19, are of such an unusually virulent nature that perhaps you should advise your client to consider controlling his anger, stop bullying or trying to extort me, and provide specific instances of defamation instead of blanket statements and conclusory allegations.
I am happy to discuss the matter further anytime.
However, based on your client’s conversation with me on October 17, I do not see him providing me with the means to assess the truth or falsity of any statement I made. This is likely because everything I wrote was true, and your letter is his attempt at bullying me, as I understand he does with his clients, many of whom are in distress.
Happily, I am not his client.
Offer in Compromise
If Mr. Nusbaum prefers to sue me, I suggest we agree to a federal venue.
However, last year, Mr. Nusbaum proposed an alternative dispute resolution. He has a penchant for alternative dispute resolutions, which I have written about. He seems to prefer removing matters with his clients from the court system, requiring them to resolve them in arbitration without discovery, and it seems without rules.
In his dispute with me, he offered another alternative forum.
In his telephone conversation with me on October 17, 2022, Mr. Nusbaum offered the following, and I replied:
Nusbaum: “If you are a real man, come over here. And we’ll talk in the playground, like we used to do in New Jersey, okay? We’ll see how tough you are Pal….
Parlato: Okay, well, it’s good. You’re a tough guy. I’m a tough guy, or you know you’d like to prove it one way or the other. But I’d like to —
Nusbaum: You’re a tough guy? What does that mean?
Parlato: You said, I believe, you invited me…
Nusbaum: Did you to play college sports, tough guy?
Parlato: I was a very capable boxer. In my day, while I was —
Nusbaum: I was doing the champion wrestling show. Anytime you want to take your boxing skills against my wrestling skills, I will put your face into the pavement.
Parlato: … As long as you tell me you’re in good physical shape, I’ll —
Nusbaum: I work out six days a week. Any day of the week.
Parlato: I will accept your challenge to the fight.
Nusbaum: Good. Get a release signed by your lawyer. Get it signed by my lawyer…
Parlato: OK, that sounds good… I’ll be happy to meet you on the field of honor…. But I’m not coming to Connecticut. You know, we’ll have to have a neutral place. How about Las Vegas?
Nusbaum: Sure. Set it up, Pal.
Special Arbitration
If Mr. Nusbaum is serious about what he might call the “face in the pavement” arbitration, I am amenable.
If Mr. Nusbaum wishes to settle the matter in this way, please execute a release from your client, holding me harmless for any injuries he may sustain in mutual combat with me.
Upon receipt of Mr. Nusbaum’s release, I will provide the same.
As for the date and venue, I am flexible. However, I am firm that it cannot be Connecticut, where laws seem to be made up as they go.
Also, please advise if Mr. Nusbaum, you, or his designated second, plan to negotiate the rules of combat, such as the use of a weapon[s], holds barred, the obligations, if any, of the victorious party in the event of a fatality, and what legal steps we must take so that our mutual combat is judicially sanctioned in the jurisdiction of the fight.
Finally, if a further dispute arises over our contractual agreement to resolve our dispute by mutual combat, I will not consent to arbitration without discovery, and where the arbitrators are lawyers in his neighborhood who practice the same field of law as he does.
I would consent to mutual combat with a dispute clause that specifies jury trial, and with a contractually binding clause, relative to jury instructions, that the jury may apply the unwritten law of the “fair fight” and disregard punitive damages if the jury finds Mr. Nusbaum’s heirs are entitled to compensation based on the well-settled family law principle that if any person slays or permanently disables another person in a duel, the slayer must provide for the maintenance of the spouse of the person slain or permanently disabled, and for the minor children, in such manner and at such cost, either by aggregate compensation in damages to each, or by a monthly, quarterly, or annual allowance.
If this proposal meets your approval, or if you believe we should talk further, please do not hesitate to contact me.
I look forward to your specifications detailing precisely what statements I have made that are defamatory, or libelous.
FRANK PARLATO
CC: File
Encl: Retraction Guidelines: Committee on Publication Ethics
MK10Art’s painting of what appears to be CT Attorney Edward Nusbaum.
