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Hello Turtle Riders. As you know if you follow Turtleboy we are constantly getting censored and banned by Facebook for what are clearly not violations of their terms of service. Twitter has done the same, and trolls mass reported our blog to Google AdSense thousands of times, leading to demonitization. We can get by and survive, but we could really use your help. Please consider donating by hitting the PayPal button above if you’d like support free speech and what we do in the face of Silicon Valley censorship. Or just buy our award winning book about the dangers of censorship and rise of Turtleboy: 

It’s not an uncommon start to a story here. Turtleboy is facing yet another frivolous lawsuit. These lawsuits tie up our court system and are simply used as a mechanism to try to silence free speech. They force us to hire lawyers, who aren’t cheap, in order to get these ridiculous complaints dismissed. We’ve never lost in court, but judges do not grant lawyer’s fees when you win. When you see the lawsuit we’re dealing with right now you will see the pure evil we are up against. For that reason we graciously appreciate any and all donations to the Turtle Fund by clicking the PayPal button above. Without your support these frivolous lawsuits will bankrupt us.

The lawsuit this time is for publishing a blog two years ago detailing the very public airing of a domestic incident that occurred between a Palmer man and the mother of his child, Samantha Cardin. The blog did not take a hard stance as to the guilt or innocence of either party, but rather provided satirical commentary on a highly viewed Facebook post.

As you can see from Rian’s tone, he is very sure of himself and exhibits arrogance that the people running the Ludlow jail are are “stupid.” But after reading the blog I am not sure what the blogger’s opinion is in relation to the guilt or innocence of Rian Waters.

But this story has a sickening twist. Unlike past litigation, Turtleboy Sports is not the only defendant listed in Rian Waters’ complaint. He has also named Ms. Cardin, and this is where things get highly objectionable. Here are portions of Rian’s complaint against Aidan Kearney and Samantha.

At about 5pm on December 31 2016, the Plaintiff was arrested for animal cruelty, and assault and battery. The Plaintiff was shocked to hear the charges. The officer twisted the few words the Plaintiff said, and claimed his bail was ten times the actual amount. The Plaintiff had almost enough on him to cover the correct bail.

As you can see, he is also accusing the police of lying in their report about what he said, while noting that he was doing so well financially that he had the money on him to pay for the bail, which was 10 times the amount he claims it was supposed to be.

In an amended complaint he also claims that he avoids going to his house now, thanks to a comment Uncle Turtleboy made on a Facebook Live show.

Rian Waters does not have a lawyer and is representing himself pro se. He has started a GoFundMe that has raised over $300, which claims that his lawsuit will “likely bring an end to Turtleboy Sports.” That is his goal. According to the GFM the money he raises will go towards food and transportation first, and any additional funding will go towards his legal expenses.

It should be noted that Michael T. Gaffney, who also filed a frivolous fraud and libel lawsuit against Turtleboy and Aidan Kearney, has written an affidavit for Rian Waters, showing that the two of them are clearly working together to silence a blog that has criticized them both.

Essentially Gaffney has become the real life incarnation of Attorney Richard N. Vulva by assisting random people who threaten to sue the blog.

Suing Aidan Kearney and Turtleboy is one thing. Suing a woman who alleged domestic violence is despicable and is a tactic abusers use to continue to harm their victims.

Sam’s story isn’t all that uncommon in its own vein, either. Statistics say that 1 in 4 women, and 1 in 7 men will find themselves victims of domestic violence in their lifetime. The numbers are staggering, the reality harrowing. Sam’s reality was no different than the rest.

“We met when I was 18, one day when he came to my then boyfriend’s house,” she recalls. “He was selling Grateful Dead tee shirts. I bought one. I thought he was cool; he went to festivals and traveled a lot, and said he was trying to start his own business. He seemed smart.” The relationship progressed quickly, with Rian playing the part of a smitten suitor. “He was sweet, and attentive, where the guy I was seeing was a heavy drinking loser. Rian swooned over me. He practically moved into my house before we had even started dating.”

And within 4 months of the relationship, he had convinced her to go out west with him to California.

“That was the start of him showing signs of becoming abusive,” she says, “Or at least the ones I fully realized. It would have probably been a lot easier to leave the relationship, had I not left with him and flown 3,000 miles away from anyone who cared about me.”

But it was all a lie, time and time again, Rian’s business ventures failed, often so quickly that not even one annual report would be filed before the inevitable suspension, dissolution or abandonment took hold. Sam discovered his true industry, making and selling THC concentrates, a crime that carried as stiff a penalty as meth manufacturing, due to the chemical process entailed.

“He would threaten to blame it all on me,” she told me, “I knew it wasn’t legal, I didn’t want anything to jeopardize our daughter. I had no control over anything in my life, I didn’t know what to do.”

She shows me picture of her bruised and battered, allegedly by his hand.

“I went homeless trying to get away with my daughter. We slept in tents on farms, I worked 16 hours a day, just to make enough to get home to Massachusetts.”

Then in December 2016, things came to a head when Rian returned to Massachusetts from California where he still resided, to visit for the holidays. This visit would result in Sam sustaining a black eye, her 10 month old, 79 pound Great Pyrenees/mastiff’s having an untimely and suspicious death, and culminated in Rian’s arrest for domestic violence and animal cruelty.

But for Sam, it didn’t end there.

“I would see vehicles parked outside my house, lights off, with someone sitting inside. I felt it was him, but I just never could get enough proof.”

Meanwhile, Rian would send message after message, attempting to coerce, threaten and bargain with Sam to prevent her from testifying in court.

It worked, and Samantha refused to corporate with the District Attorney in the case against Rian. Charges were dropped, without prejudice. Ms. Cardin is not a woman of means, and was scared into believing that if she testified against him that she risked losing custody of her special needs daughter, because she claims that Rian Waters would’ve accused her of having drugs in her house that he sent in the mail from California before arriving.

However, having the charges dropped is not an exoneration; it’s simply the gears of justice grinding to a halt as they so often do in cases such as this. In the matter of an assault that so often occurs with no witnesses, victim testimony is imperative. Batterers know this, batterers capitalize on this. An official source close to the criminal case has assured us the injuries to the dog were non-accidental, and that Luna was killed, but without a cooperative witness, prosecution often falls flat.  So Rian was free to continue his campaign to harass, discredit, and frighten his ex, as he had done so many times before.

And Rian wasn’t finished yet. As he attempted frantically to reestablish contact with the woman whom he was arrested and charged with abusing and got nothing but silence in return, he soon turned his attention to Turtleboy Sports. In May he started emailing Uncle Turtleboy, taunting him about filing a lawsuit.

But before filing the lawsuit he offered NOT to go through with it, if we retracted the blog about him, paid him a “small cash settlement,” and to do a follow up article which would presumably speak his praises. According to the email Turtleboy would “lose credibility when the facts go public,” because we “attacked an innocent and good man,” even though he was never found not guilty. He claimed that he couldn’t get into the Open Society Foundations because of the blog, and that he was going to travel to Worcester to “meet” with Uncle Turtleboy.

Still no lawsuit was filed, and he continued to taunt about the possibility of a lawsuit in the near future. As usual he was a genius who knew how to quadruple our audience, if only we sought his advice.

After filing the lawsuit, which amongst other things claims libel because it referred to his mustache as a “collection of dirt and pubes,” he attempted to extort money from us by promising to withdraw for cash. Specifically he wanted $1,500, plus a $5,000 advertising credit. He also wanted us to write a two part blog (which he would approve of before publishing) that smeared his daughter’s doctor, smeared Samantha, and painted him as a loving father fighting hard to regain custody of his daughter (who he admittedly does not pay child support for).

“Sadly I can’t drop the suit completely because Samantha is still crazy and this case is slowly bringing her back into reality“, he writes. “But I can have a lawyer draft a proper settlement agreement and drop all defendants but her.” 

We will not be threatened or coerced into the continued abuse or harassment of a young mother, and we will not be silenced. A dog is dead, a young mother battered, all in the presence of her young, disabled child. And so, this blog is caught in the midst of litigation where the stakes are higher than we have ever seen. This transcends our right to free speech. This now involves the rights of victims of domestic violence to be free of further harassment and coercion, all but sanctioned by our legal system. It is patently absurd that a judge is even hearing this case, but it’s just how our courts work.

Samantha is being sued for “malicious prosecution”, among other baseless complaints, for a criminal case brought by the Commonwealth, not by her.  Turtleboy is being sued under the guise of a blog that simply offered commentary on a situation made public via social media. Commentary which, quite frankly, seems far too forgiving.

This tactic of using the legal system to further perpetuate abuse on a victim that Rian seems to gleefully employ is not unusual. In a system that allows for nearly any complaint to be filed, no matter how frivolous, it becomes easy for abusers to drain the financial and emotional resources of their victims, leveling continued harassment and intimidation, and all through the perfectly legal channels of the courts. For so many victims, with scarce resources and battered confidence, the results can be devastating – regardless of the actual merits, or lack thereof, of the case. Such is the case for Sam. Without a firm grasp of the legal system, and no access to an attorney, a default judgement has been filed against her. She has a hearing on Wednesday, January 9 that Rian wants recorded.

“He served a previous address, I didn’t even know where to go, or when,” she tells me, “I didn’t think he’d be able to take it this far.”

But he did.

I’m generally not in the habit of asking our readers for donations, but this to me is a glaring exception. What this man is doing is pure evil, and he has the ability to do some serious financial damage to the company by draining us of our limited time and resources, after already being under attack by boycotters, threats, and tech companies.

We can’t just roll over and let this man inflict this damage onto the woman he so egregiously mistreated for so many years. We cannot stand by and let yet another abuser use the courts systems to further his own agenda. If we exist for anything, it is to expose these issues and stand for those who cannot stand for themselves. As little as a $5 donation will help us fund this fight. If you can’t donate, please share. If people like Rian Waters choose to behave like this then their behavior should be exposed. Don’t let this issue fade away, don’t let the voices of Samantha Cardin and so many others fade into obscurity and silence. If there’s a fight worth fighting, it’s this one, so that we can stand together and say loud and clear, this is not something that we condone, or accept. And we never, ever will.

I published this blog because I wanted to make it clear to Rian that he can sue Aidan Kearney, but he will not silence me. I will not stand by and watch a woman being abused and a dog being killed, without justice. If you want to reach me you can do so at Bristolturtlechick@gmail.com.