Burnt Orange Report

Doing a Favor For Jon Mureen

By Andrew Dobbs

With all this talk about SG, I forgot to mention that my one time nemesis Jon Mureen called me the other day. Jon ran for SG President my freshman year and I gladly helped Brian Haley beat him. Jon's a nice enough guy I suppose and we became rather cordial after it all was over. Now he's apparantly at the University of Virginia law school and did a Google Search of himself to see what future employers would find. He claimed that the first thing were some comments some trickster left on BOR claiming to be him saying crazy things. The search didn't turn this up, and someone had removed the posts, probably Byron.

I wanted to put the posts up so everyone could see what Mureen was so worried about, but now I can't. What I CAN do is put up the rather silly email that Jon sent me threatening me to take down the posts. Here you go:

Andrew,

I’m still hoping to resolve this civilly, but judging by your refusal to respond, I can infer that you do not care to. This issue will have to be resolved one way or another, so unless I hear from you within 48 hours, we will commence legal proceedings, and you will receive word from my attorney. At that point, I will leave the rest of the communication to him.

If doing the right thing is not enough motivation for you to remove the pages, you should also know that it is in your best interest to do so. If you refuse, not only will the Burnt Orange Report and its agents be held liable for knowingly publicizing slanderous and false information (and refusing to remove it), but it will also be fairly easy to determine who created the false identity. In addition to his own civil liability, that individual will face criminal charges for identity theft.

Andrew, I hope it doesn’t come to any of this, but please know that I am serious. As a law student, I have the time, resources, and access to quality legal counsel that will allow me to see this through.

Regards,

Jon Mureen

Well Jon, we didn't slander you- if anything we were libelous seeing that libel is written and slander is spoken, but we weren't even doing that. See, we run a website and anyone can put whatever name and write here. We didn't say anything about you, so we couldn't have libeled or slandered you. If I owned a truck stop and someone put on a bathroom wall "For a Good Time, Call Jon Mureen 434-906-04**", could I be sued for insinuating that you would show some lonely trucker a good time? I think not. And this unknown webperson didn't really "steal your identity" so much as s/he portrayed a parody, a satire- protected speech under the First Amendment (I'm sure you'll cover that in law school at some point). So bring your attorneys on, Mr. Mureen.

I don't know what this shows- that Mureen will be a good attorney because he is an uptight prick or a bad attorney because a) his knowledge of the law is feeble at best and b) he is such a weak-willed type that he is worried that a few silly BOR posts will keep a graduate of the University of Texas and UVA law out of a job. Either way, the email was a bit on the silly side.

The posts are down and this suggests to me that there will likely be no reason for me ever to talk to Jon Mureen again, which makes me rather happy. I hold no grudges, I kicked his ass once already and got my jollies then. Hope Mr. Mureen can let it go sooner or later as well.