Bar Association states there was no threat made by Boone, ignores Boone's admission that his law firm destroyed the very evidence that Boone claimed to be seeking
In yet another twist in the Mogensen Public Records / Sunshine Law lawsuit, the Florida Bar Association has rejected a complaint filed against attorney Jeff Boone by me.

In a complaint filed by me to the Florida Bar earlier this year, I stated that Boone had falsely accused me in open court of being in possession of "stolen" and "illegally obtained emails" of Councilman John Simmonds (Boone's wording from the original court filing). These emails had been previously published on this web site. In the filed motion, Boone demanded to know how I acquired the emails. Boone mentioned hacking in the court filing, but he stopped just short of accusing me of being the actual hacker who had likely infiltrated Simmonds' computer. Boone did, however, make that leap in judgment with Sarasota Herald-Tribune reporter Kim Hackett:

Boone said Patten did computer work for Simmonds several years ago and could have "placed software to have it remotely accessed." Patten, who operates veniceflorida.com and is a frequent critic of Simmonds, said he did nothing wrong. On June 15, Patten posted three e-mails between Simmonds and Venice Jet Center manager Art Nadel discussing airport issues. Boone said both men denied sharing the e-mails with anyone else, so they must have been hacked.
-- Councilman wants to see his computer, Sarasota Herald-Tribune, June 26, 2008.

According to Florida Bar Association ethics rules, it is improper to make false criminal allegations in an attempt to gain strategic advantage in a civil case. Nevertheless, the Bar Association sided with Boone in the complaint, stating that Boone hadn't made an ethical breach as he stopped short of threatening me with criminal legal charges:

     In the inquiry/complaint, it is alleged that Mr. Boone made acted unethically [sic] by filing the Verified Emergency Motion to Protect Computer of Defendant Simmonds Until Further Order of The Court. After review of the documentation it establishes that the Verified Motion is not frivolous nor did Mr. Boone threaten you with criminal charges.
     ...There is insufficient evidence from the materials provided that the attorney has violated any of the rules adopted by the Supreme Court of Florida which govern attorney discipline. Accordingly, continued disciplinary proceedings in this matter are inappropriate and our file has been closed.
-- F.J.P. Digon-Greer, Bar Counsel, letter dated 09/17/08

All of this strikes me as somewhat odd, as I never used the word "frivolous" or posited an argument that Boone's motion was "frivolous," nor did I ever state that Boone had threatened me with criminal charges. The Bar Association seems to be playing at straw man arguments here -- they appear to have rejected the complaint by misdefining my original arguments and then refuting their own created misdefinitions while wholly avoiding the original basis of my complaint. Eh -- lawyers -- go figure. Big surprise that, huh?

What I did complain was that Boone had aimed the false accusation at me when he already had information in his possession that had been forwarded to his law office by Simmonds, information that clearly showed that Simmonds himself had leaked the emails months before I published them. Specifically, my complaint was that Boone made the allegations at a time when he already knew or should have known, by evidence that his law firm was already in possession of, that the allegations were false. 

Boone countered that argument with the Florida Bar by acknowledging that his law firm was in possession of information that would have exonerated me but that his law firm wasn't in possession of those exonerating emails anymore as they had been previously deleted from the firm's computers by his father, fellow attorney E.G. "Dan" Boone:

Both Simmonds and Nadel were adamant that they had not copied anyone else on the 5 emails in question (which had been sent 6 months earlier), other than E.G. Boone. Mr. Boone was unable to provide any further insight into this matter as he had deleted those emails (and all others from that far back) from his computer. No paper or other type of copies were kept of the emails by E.G. Boone.
-- Jeff Boone, response to Bar Association complaint, 08/14/08

In other words, Boone made the accusation that I was in possession of stolen emails after his law firm partner had destroyed the evidence that would show that the contrary was true (evidence that was in the form of correspondence with a client, no less).

Isn't that convenient? Neat and tidy, too. The Florida Bar's attorney, F.J.P. Digon-Greer, had no problem with that, that was a hunky dory a-ok lawyering job on the part of the Boones.

Jeff Boone would like you to know that he really, really, really isn't that kind of a guy... not that there's anything wrong with that
Boone wasted no time in his response to the complaint in attacking my character, apparently successfully. Boone wrote that I offered to identify the source of the emails in exchange for...

(wait for it...)

(wait for it...)

...oral sex.

No I'm not kidding. I wish I were, but you just can't make stuff like this up. See, I became so angered by Boone's false accusations that at one point, I lost my cool and told him to blow me. As I later wrote, that probably wasn't the brightest thing I could have said, but I did say it.

Incredibly and hilariously, Boone took the insult as a legitimate offer of sex. I had coffee flying out of my nose the first time I read the following paragraph (hint -- whatever it is that you are drinking, put it down now):

     Moreover, prior to filing the Motion, I asked Patten on two separate occasions where he obtained the emails in question, and he refused both times to answer. After filing the Motion, I asked him a third time, he refused again, but did state he would tell me if I would perform an oral sex act on him. This statement was made out loud, in public (at Venice City Hall) and in front of several people. In fact, Patten created a blog post  on his web site confirming this [link].
     .... [NOTE: I regret having to include such vulgar and disgusting language in this response, but it is factually accurate, it was posted by Patten himself on his blog, and it provides a direct indication as to the type of person who has filed the complaint].
-- Jeff Boone, response to Bar Association complaint, 08/14/08

Wait... What?...

mmmmmmmkay......

Sunuvabitch, he did it again -- another false accusation (or, more accurately, a grossly exaggerated claim deliberately stretched to create an overly obvious fiction). Boone later misquotes me as saying "if you blow me, I will tell you," which is not even remotely close to what I actually said.

On June 24, just after the closing gavel of a city council meeting, Boone walked up and interrupted a conversation I was having with City Attorney Bob Anderson and Councilman John Moore by stating, "All John has to do is tell me how he got the emails."

I responded by angrily stating, "Jeff, all you have to do is blow me!" I didn't offer anything in return, there was no quid pro quo. Hell, I didn't even offer him a reach-around.

In Boone's mind (or so he would have you believe), that constituted a genuine offer of real man-on-man sex. The Bar Association apparently believed Boone. They didn't even blink at this additional accusation from Boone, despite the fact that even readers on Fark picked up on my actual meaning. My response to the Bar Association of that allegation was apparently unconvincing:

     Then there is that sensationalist sex-bomb that Boone drops into the middle and keeps referring to as though it is the major indicator of my total lack of character: Boone's claim that I offered to receive oral sex from him in exchange for the info that he sought. If this were political commentary, that right there is what I would refer to as comedy gold. But this isn't political commentary, this is serious stuff, real legal filings.
     ...When Boone interrupted a polite conversation that I was having with a city councilman (after the closing gavel of the June 24 city council meeting) by crossing the entire length of council chamber to interject that all I had to do was cough up my source of the emails, I responded in character by telling Boone that all he had to do was blow me. There was no reciprocal offer, no quid pro quo. I offered nothing in exchange. Nor did I sense for a second that Boone might be actually naive enough to think that such locker room chest puffing was an actual offer. Nobody can really be that stupidly homophobic as to see an offer of sex where there is none, nor can such pretense to dumbness be believed for a second; and yet, incredibly, Boone would have you believe that he is that dumb and homophobic.
     Boone decries that my comment to him was a low vulgar moment and uses it to attack my character. Yet for all my baseness and blue-collar crass in making the statement to Boone, his fictional account of the incident and the hallucinogenic interpretation that he would have you believe all that manages to show [is] that Boone is capable of going even lower into the same gutter that he would have you believe that I am in.
-- John Patten, rebuttal to Boone's response, 08/26/08

So at this point in time, I guess I am lucky that I didn't tell Boone to bite me, kiss my ass, kiss my grits, eat my shorts, or use any other "vulgar and disgusting language" that can be heard on any given episode of The Simpsons. If I am reading Jeff's words correctly, he is apparently under the paranoid and homophobic delusion that he has gay written all over him and that any other man that looks at him is lusting for his skinny bones, so you know those comments would have been construed as yet more offers of sweaty man-sex.

Not that there's anything wrong with that.

On the other hand, as the poster Brown Sauce on Fark noted, at least I used a really nice font:

John Patten is the editor and publisher of Venice Florida! dot com and had previously worked in broadcasting for over 12 years. He can also be incredibly rude at times.