Lawyer for Santa Accused of Public Handjob Demands Article Be Yanked
Following yesterday's post about a SantaCon Santa who was allegedly caught by a filmmaker having his North Pole publicly waxed by a naughty little elf, Gawker received an "urgent" email from a man claiming to be Santa's lawyer.
Here it is in full:
Take Down Article Or Deal With Legal Ramifications
To whom this may concern,
I am representing my client, who is the male shown in the video posted in your article from today entitled:
SantaCon Santa Gets Public Handjob from Naughty Mrs. Claus
My client is a successful New York business man who was simply trying to get home with his girlfriend who had a little bit too much to drink while at SantaCon. The articles that have been posted are extremely hurtful, derogatory, and are simply a defamation of character. The accusations being made have no merit and no basis and are not only inappropriate, but damaging for my client and his girlfriend's reputation and their respective careers.
I am drafting up a lawsuit as we speak and I will pursue several charges against the Huffington Post for the untrue, damaging, and hurtful article that has been posted about my client and his girlfriend. Unless this article is removed within the next 24 hours I fully expect to seek damages for my client and his girlfriend. I imagine that this is something your legal team does not want to deal with, but I have been retained by my client and I am fully prepared to seek corrective actions.
Please give me a call at [REDACTED] at any time to discuss this matter or confirm that the posting will be removed.
Regards,
Tyler Van Buren, Esq.
While the identity of the SantaCon attendee remains unknown to us, we do know quite a bit about his attorney, Mr. Tyler Van Buren, Esq., thanks to his various online bios, which are linked to the telephone number he provided, and his Google+ account, which is linked to the Gmail account he emailed us from.
For instance, while Mr. Van Buren, Esq., appends the "esquire" honorific to his name—which is traditionally understood in the United States to indicate the status of a practicing attorney—neither his LinkedIn profile nor his Seeking Alpha biography indicate attendance at law school. His name does not appear in the New York Unified Court System's directory of attorneys who have been admitted to the state bar. Nor does it appear in the directory of the state bar association of California, the state in which Mr. Tyler Van Buren, Esq., was married in 2011.
Furthermore, according to his LinkedIn profile — where Mr. Tyler Van Buren, Esq., goes by Tyler M. Van Buren, MSc — his actual area of expertise is life sciences, which would make sense, since he is the recipient of a bachelor of science in biochemistry and cellular biology and a masters in science in stem cell biology, both from the University of California at San Diego.
That's probably why, earlier this year, he accepted the position of Specialty Pharmaceuticals Sellside Analyst at the New York-based financial services firm Cowen and Company.
(A brief interlude, apropos of nothing: Section 478 of the New York Judiciary Law states in part that "it shall be unlawful for any natural person...to assume, use, or advertise the title of lawyer...in such manner as to convey the impression that he is a legal practitioner of law...without having first been duly and regularly licensed and admitted to practice law in the courts of record of this state.")
Lastly, while we initially didn't post a second (since removed) video from "Peeping John" Wilson's Instagram page showing a much clearer image of Tyler Van Buren, Esq.'s client, we now feel it's worth a closer look: