Since 2010, the law office of Paul J. Sulla Jr. faced a steady flow of Internet defamation by two conspiracy theorists. Often referred to on the Internet as the “Horokane”, they include Leonard Horowitz and Sherri Kane, now living in Las Vegas, Nevada. These individuals have a long history of cyber-bullying anyone who crosses their path with defamatory and misleading claims advancing questionable theories which of date share more resemblance with QAnon than reality.
This article is a rebuttal of truth to counter the many lies and falsehoods concocted by Horowitz and Kane and published on the internet and social; media to destroy Sulla for his role in preserving a dying man’s property. Had Paul not stepped in, Horowitz would have gotten away with this unjust gain. This fact, plus Paul’s later efforts to eject Horowitz and Kane from the property provided the fodder for Horowitz and Kane’s obsession to get even.
While their online defamation is all untruthful hyperbole, its maliciousness continues to affect Paul’s personal life, the operation of this firm, his family, friends, clients and associates, including the reputation of the Santo Daime Church in Hawaii. What follows is Paul’s story–how this happened, why it endures, and his intention to fight against this defamation. We cannot reveal any specific strategies but we can reassure clients, friends, church members and the public, in general, that these lies, falsehoods, and defamation are merely an effort of two obsessive Internet trolls to discredit Paul after he prevailed against them in the lawsuit and foreclosure. As legal remedies are limited, the only real course available is to meet this defamatory disinformation campaign against Paul with truth and let this light shine in to expose their dark and malicious lies, falsehoods and outrageous attacks.
Background
This law firm’s ordeal started in 2009 when it took over the representation of a dying client “CLL” in the appeal of an erroneous judgment in favor of Leonard Horowitz in an on-going foreclosure lawsuit. Our client’s successor “JH” ultimately prevailed to overturn and vacate the erroneous jury award in 2010. This led to the foreclosure of property in Hawaii owned by a Washington State non-profit corporation entitled Royal Bloodline of David “RBD” linked to Horowitz.
That is when the defamation began. It started with misstating Mr. Sulla’s earlier battles for clients with the IRS, then turning to attack Sulla’s association with the Santo Daime religion, until maliciously spitting out multiple unfounded charges against Sulla including theft, forgery, extortion, arms dealing, treason, murder, to name a few.
These charges are completely unrelated to the practice of law at his firm. Current defamation attempts seek to paint a picture where Paul is not only guilty of forgery and real estate theft but now also of running a child and drug trafficking enterprise.
Defamation Lawsuit
There was an attempt to end the defamation through legal channels. Paul filed a defamation lawsuit in 2012 and was successful in gaining a preliminary injunction against Leonard Horowitz on June 17, 2013. This injunction ordered Horowitz and Kane to stop all defamation efforts on their various websites.
Unfortunately, the law, whether it is local, state or federal, is unprepared to effectively regulate such online defamation. The injunction made a strong statement against online defamation but had little power beyond that. All their actionable content was moved to servers located outside the U.S. and featured anonymous authors. This turned the defamation into a global issue where there are little to no enforcement powers or named individuals to target for a successful defamation lawsuit.
Paul dismissed the defamation lawsuit when it became clear that after spending significant time and money on the action, even a court victory would not remove the content. It’s a matter of technology being ahead of the law. A whole new world. Instead of pursuing defamation relief from the courts, Paul’s efforts turned to represent his former client JH in an effort to eject Horowitz and Kane from the property where they had been holding over for several years, even as they continued their defamation and intimidation tactics.
As Paul stated in an earlier blog article on this website: “The legal dispute that spawned the attacks against me online by Horowitz and Kane is actually a legal dispute between them and my client. It is not even my issue. It is as if no one informed Horowitz and Kane of the difference between the client’s property and the attorney’s.”
The Horokane online defamation campaign included digging up information and presenting it in a derogatory, false and misleading manner. They also pursued the FBI, DEA, Hawaii Bar Association, Hawaii Supreme Court, and state and county prosecutors’ offices to file complaints and charges. None of the legal law enforcing authorities, Courts, state and local offices ever pursued the claims because they were all easily proven false. Once that became the case, the Horokane wove those institutions including the local judiciary and the Hawaii Bar Association into their claims, alleging that they willingly supported Paul as a “criminal enterprise” and “drug kingpin.”
The bar association cleared Paul of all allegations of misconduct claimed by Horowitz in September 2014 because there was no evidence to support the false claims. Horowitz attempted to file a “non-consensual common law lien” against all real estate owned, ever owned by Paul. The court, after months of Paul’s efforts to serve Horowitz, summarily granted judgment, ordered the unlawful liens “expunged” and awarded Sulla damages against Horowitz.
Quiet Title Action
In 2014, Sulla filed a quiet title action to enforce the non judicial foreclosure against RBD and to eject Horowitz and Kane from the foreclosed property they refused to vacate. Horowitz removed the matter to Federal Court and filed wide ranging counterclaims against Sulla and his client JH. Federal Court Judge Seabright, in an Order Remanding Action and Order Striking Horowitz’s claims labeled his claims as “fanciful, frivolous and delusional”, casting doubt on Horowitz’ credibility. Besides labeling Horowitz’s claims “delusional”, the judge sent the case back to the State court for further action in the ejectment lawsuit.
The trial court granted Final Judgment in favor of JH, Sulla’s client against Horowitz and issued a Writ of Ejectment in March 2016. In July 2016 Horowitz, Kane and all their agents were finally removed from the property. Horowitz appealed to the Intermediate Court of Appeals (“ICA”). The ICA consolidated this quiet title/ejectment matter with the continuing appeal of the 2005 lawsuit appeal relative to the vacated jury award.
In May 2019, the ICA affirmed the trial court’s Judgment to vacate the jury award in the 2005 matter but remanded the quiet title/ejectment action back to the trial court for further findings as to whether the foreclosure public auction was reasonably diligent, fair and in good faith as well as whether the purchase bid was adequate for the subject property. This matter is presently before the trial court on JH’s renewed Motion for Summary Judgment specifically on the issues of the fairness of the auction. Ironically, the video, taken at the auction which Horokane widely published to mock, disparage and defame JR and Sulla, is now the best evidence as to the fair, diligent and good faith manner the auction was conducted. .
Current Claims
Unfortunately, two developments refreshed this defamation campaign. As with everything else associated with Paul, these recent events are also taken completely out of context by the Horokane.
On May 23, 2019, Paul’s son, Jasun Sulla-Menashe, was indicted with a single count of third-degree promotion of child abuse. The charge related to law enforcement discovering sixty (60) videos and still images of child pornography on Jasun’s computer. Jasun pleaded not guilty. In July 2020, the County prosecutor threatened to bring a superseding indictment against Jasun if he did not change his plea. Jasun refused and shortly thereafter, the prosecutor returned to the grand jury and obtained a superseding indictment increasing the charge to second-degree with several additional counts based upon the same videos and images. Jasun’s criminal matter received extra publicity when the charges were upgraded on August 5, 2020 and it replaced the previous one.
This development caused confusion since news headlines and stories always referred to Jasun as Paul’s son and made it seem like Paul was involved in these incidents. The truth is that, other than a family relationship, there is no link between Jasun’s alleged offenses and Paul’s law practice or his involvement in the Santo Daime church.
Nevertheless Horowitz responded by reviving up their defamation claims against Paul. They presented Jasun’s indictment as evidence of a “sex and drug protection racket” that reveals deep corruption within state government, the FBI, and the DEA all of whom allegedly wish to maintain a global child trafficking ring. The claim that the factual news stories on Jasun’s indictment are “superficial coverage” because it does not delve into their figments of imagination.
The second development involves Paul directly. On Wednesday, December 4, 2019: Paul was indicted for first degree theft of property and second degree forgery concerning a piece of land containing an easement road in Iower Puna. On Thursday, December 19, 2019, Paul pleaded not guilty. This indictment arose out of a County of Hawaii’s retiring prosecutor negligent and misguided investigation of Horowitz and Kane’s false claims that Paul intentionally had conveyed a roadway to cut off access to a steam vent and warm pools on the property Horowitz had hoped to turn into a health spa until the foreclosure.
Paul expects dismissal of these charges since the alleged forgery and/or theft arose from a property description taken from a title report. Since that time, the title company has admitted it had made an error by including the property description in its title report. Nevertheless, the COVID pandemic reduced court appearances significantly in the last few months. Paul has a pending Motion to Dismiss before the trial court to be taken up in November. If that Motion is not granted, then Paul is pressing to have his trial in early December. .
Taken together, these latest criminal charges have seen exaggerated, explosive, and conspiracy tinged headlines from Horokane almost every day. Notably, although banned by Facebook, Kane has created a growing following of lies and hate against Paul and his son. This increased defamation against him, his son and his church has spurred this article to begin to rebut the trash coming from this Horokane duo.
We plan on presenting more information on this pair as matters develop. This law office and Paul Sulla thank you for this support. It is apparent that online defamation is a real problem in this online society and courts still need time to catch up on this issue. Until that happens, this firm intends to continue offering skilled legal services in business law, estate planning, and real estate law to the citizens of east Hawaii.The post The Horokane Nuisance: A Saga of Internet Defamation first appeared on Paul J. Sulla, Jr..
