I received a very bizarre and amusing letter from Rivera and Davis's "lawyer." Whether he is actually a lawyer for them for anything beyond this strangeness is unknown. If I were them I'd demand a refund. Below is my response, sent to their law office but also posted publicly here for all to see.
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Mr. Feldstein,
I received the Fedex package from you. It was quite entertaining that you would spend the funds to send several dozen pages of the NAFPS research thread on Rivera and Davis and rather ludicrously entitle it "Exhibit A," pretending it was anything from an actual court. Such a tactic is more typical of someone posing as a lawyer rather than an actual one.
We at NAFPS get empty threats to sue many times a year. But typically they come from frauds posing as lawyers rather than an actual lawyer.
Actual lawyers know better. Sending photocopied online posts and pretending it's a legal exhibit, or sending a letter and pretending it's a Cease and Desist order from a court, as you've done, are typically what Sovereign Citizen nuts try, not actual lawyers. What would your state bar have to say about such posing?
I see that the posts were photocopied for you on Nov. 10, but you sent the faux Cease and Desist "order" on Jan. 10. So you had at least two months to do research before you embarrassed yourself with what you've sent on your law firm's stationary.
No doubt it would occur to you to wonder why it took Rivera and Davis nearly thirteen years from the time the research thread began on them to claim "defamation," and that same amount of time to claim "mental distress," that we hurt their feelings by publicly debunking their numerous obvious lies.
I have to wonder at the thoroughness of your research before you sent the letter. Given your background, some may find it commendable you would still take a case representing members of a hate group and longtime associates of literal Nazis.
You sent the "exhibit," so you supposedly read it. This means you know about Rivera and Davis associating with Yehuda Glick and his Neo Nazi friend Strache, several genocide advocates Ariel and Gopstein, and Neo Nazi Billy Roper.
You know about their long membership in the hate group Act For America and appearing on the same stages as their notoriously bigoted leader, Brigitte Gabriel. Again, given your background, some would find it commendable you still represent them, unless you share their views.
It's bizarre you keep assuming I alone said every single thing on the thread, and have only made the not-believable threat to sue to me, and none of the others. There are nearly a dozen people writing on the research thread, and over 2000 NAFPS members from dozens of tribes, many nations, and many faiths. Those writing on the research thread include Rivera himself, who I quoted in full. We always welcome all information, and would be glad to post any statement from him or Davis.
How about it? Tell them we'd post their statement, just as we did before. They could even join, post, correct any mistakes or try to justify their actions. We'd welcome the debate to get to the heart of such matters.
As another example of your sloppiness and lack of research, you falsely attributed the genealogy research to me, when it was not me. It was several others. So I'm quite sure a judge or jury would throw that claim of "defamation" out.
Not only because its's a false accusation. It hasn't even been considered "defamation" to argue someone is of a different race than they claim for over 50 years. Only racists from segregation days ever considered, "That's not your actual race," to be insulting or painful. But then you, as a lawyer, should know this.
Your claim that Davis is "proven" to be Cherokee is laughable. You point to the Georgia "Tribe" of "Eastern Cherokee." State governments have no legal power to recognize a tribe. Constitutionally, only the federal government does. Part of the reason is that states have no credible standards for recognition, and because state congressmen want to get elected, they often back dubious or even obviously false claims.
No recognized Cherokee consider them to actually be Cherokee. Charitably, I called them a heritage club, even though their claims of heritage are not backed up. The Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma lists them as frauds. The Bureau of Indian Affairs says they are neither Cherokee nor anything resembling a tribe.
But then you, as their lawyer, should know this. The BIA states in their decision that GTEC only submitted eleven members that were allegedly Cherokee. And GTEC couldn't even provide any evidence at all they were Cherokee.
All you have is Davis's unbacked claim of being allegedly Cherokee. You don't have any evidence backing it, or you would mention it in your letter. You chose to ignore that every census with her ancestors lists them as White.
You chose to ignore that she keeps changing her claims of her ancestry. It's striking you don't even try to defend her claims of being Creek or Taino.
It's also striking you don't claim that Rivera is Taino. You know he kept changing his claim of his ancestry, and is only part of a heritage club similar to GTEC. A heritage club doesn't have actual Native chiefs, any more than the Boy Scouts or the YMCA. But then you, as their lawyer, should know this.
You should also know you have just defamed *me* with your false claims. You falsely accuse me of claiming David falsified her genealogy records. I challenge you to point to me writing this anywhere.
Again, I did not do any genealogy research, nor claimed to. I'm curious as to how your state bar would react to your lying about and defaming me.
You also repeatedly falsely refer to Davis as a doctor. Again, as their lawyer, you should already know this is false. She's not a medical or any other kind of doctor. She bought a worthless online "degree" from a diploma mill. Again, this is highly unethical and questionable for you as a lawyer to spread deliberate falsehoods.
The final ludicrous part of your letter was claiming I damaged them. I'm sure you know, as a lawyer, you have to prove damages.
Yet you don't list any monetary losses, no job losses, nothing that happened to them. Just their pouting and hurt feelings because we pointed out their bigotry and obvious falsehoods.
You even go so far as to claim I "defamed" them in my classes. I'm curious, are you claiming you have spies in my classes, secretly recording lectures? Why would you even think I would have any reason to mention them? They're not exactly famous, except perhaps as legends in their own minds. Just a few gullible conferences of other bigots.
I'm not exactly confident in your research abilities. Any of this you could find out literally in just a few minutes. As a lawyer, you should know to research first before repeatedly embarrassing yourself publicly.
Then again, you could just be going through the motions and taking the money of these crackpot bigots. Certainly no good lawyer would waste anyone's time on this, or risk their good name.
