Beware the time traveling troll! Copyright troll John Steele mailed out a signed settlement letter with dates 5 years in the past

(I suspect that there are additional letters, however since I have not confirmed that assumption the title will remain "letter" for now.)

I recently obtained a copy of a signed letter from the office of Steele Hansmeier PLLC(wefightpiracy_com) that is intended to serve as a follow-up to one of the firm's "settlement letters." The date on the letter is in March of 2011.

The first sentence of the letter basically states: On March _, 2007 our office sent you a letter regarding the aforementioned copyright infringement case that was filed on September _, 2006

Those are not typos, well at least not on my part.

The letter continues with a statement that claims that Mr. Steele's office has been unable to get in touch with the recipient.

Odd thing is, the e-mail address that is listed under the mailing address on the letter is not the e-mail address associated with the recipient's ISP. The only way Mr. Steele's firm could obtain the address would be by asking for it during a phone call. One of the five calls which Mr. Steele's firm would like to pretend never happened. The recipient said no to settling which is probably something his firm never expected to hear

The letter concludes with a new settlement deadline of mid April 2011. At the very end is Mr. Steele's signature(he signed off on extremely inaccurate dates and a blatant lie)

Personally, I believe that the implications of this letter are extremely disturbing. For one, Mr. Steele's firm appears to not bother proof-reading any of its letters. Mr. Steele is comfortable with asking for thousands of dollars from people, but he can't take 10 seconds to at least review the first sentence of his settlement letters.

Assuming the incorrect dates were not the result of a typo, then they must be the result of faulty automated software. No human being would shift from 2011 to 2007 to 2006 then back to 2011. If the incorrect dates came from automated software, it must have been programmed by amateurs for it to be so inaccurate.

Was Mr. Steele's bittorrent tracking software programmed by the same people who attempted to insert dates into the settlement letters?

No one knows how his software works, nor do they know if his firm takes the same sort of liberties with accurately typing IP addresses as they do with dates. Mix-up a few numbers and you end up suing the wrong person

If I was on a jury, I wouldn't trust evidence being created by family law attorney turned porn pirate chaser who is apparently too busy to get the date right on what is supposed to be a settlement letter

The closest thing I have heard about that one could interpret as an excuse for the obvious errors, is that Mr. Steele doesn't have very much free time. I guess that is understandable when you are attempting to threaten to sue thousands of people in multiple states and Canada. Looks like Mr. Steele's class is quickly becoming unmanageable.

I have advised the source of the letter to notify the courts that he will address the issue head on, once he figures out how to get back to 2007.

If anyone else received a similar letter, hold on to it. Mr. Steele's colossal screw-up, and his official signature that essentially approves of failing to proof-read, fact check, and tell time are factors which may sway the court's opinion in your favor. Most federal judges already disapprove of his behavior, and this will just add one more reason for another judge to tear his cases apart