LUTHMANN NOTE: This case is no longer about defective service or sloppy filings. It’s about fraud, perjury, and a calculated abuse of the federal courts to silence critics and generate content. Jeremy Hales didn’t just miss deadlines—he manufactured facts. Randy Shochet didn’t just argue aggressively—he swore to things that are demonstrably false. And Eugene Griffin didn’t just serve the wrong person—he signed affidavits that collapse under basic scrutiny. Judges are not obligated to indulge this kind of misconduct in the name of “process.” They are obligated to stop it. Toss the case. Sanction the players. Refer the lies. Enough is enough. This piece was first published on FLGulfNews.com.
By Dick LaFontaine and Richard Luthmann with Michael Volpe
(GAINESVILLE, FLORIDA) – YouTube grifter Jeremy “Germ” Hales, his lawyer Randy “Pocket Rocket” Shochet, and a process server known as “G-MAN” Eugene Griffin didn’t just botch service of process. They appear to have fabricated it.
The paper trail says otherwise. And this isn’t the first time.
In recent sworn court filings, the trio claimed “Richard Luthmann” was properly served in the federal lawsuit Hales v. Preston et al., now pending in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Florida, Gainesville Division.
The lawsuit, sometimes referred to as “Fed 2,” features Hales suing journalists, content creators, and other YouTubers because he doesn’t like what they have to say about him and his cabal. Hales is suing TV personality Robbie Kezsey and Ray Bonecrusher, an octogenarian retired veteran still grieving the recent loss of his wife, underscoring the case’s vindictive and abusive nature.
“This lawsuit was never about justice or facts. It’s frivolous by design,” says Chicago-based journalist Michael Volpe. “Jeremy Hales is using the courts the same way he uses YouTube— as a weapon to intimidate critics, chill reporting, and punish speech he doesn’t like. He uses it monetize his content creation. When lawsuits are filed to silence journalists and churn earnings instead of resolving real disputes, that’s not litigation. That’s lawfare against the First Amendment.”
The litigious Hales is involved in nearly two dozen lawsuits aimed at generating YouTube content.
Previous and current affidavits interposed against “Luthmann” name a phantom “stepmother,” misidentify the defendant, and assert facts the signers could not possibly know.
On Two Lees in a Pod, investigative reporter Richard Luthmann dismantled the scheme line by line, document by document. What emerges is not sloppy lawyering, but alleged perjury, fraud on the court, and bad-faith litigation—the kind that draws the attention of federal judges, bar regulators, and the FBI.
Court observers are left with a burning question: What will U.S. Judge Hinkle and U.S. Magistrate Judge Bolitho do?
Hales’s Legal Circus Exposed: Bogus Service, Elder Abuse, and Blatant Court Fraud
Jeremy Hales bragged to his 730,000+ YouTube followers that he “served” his nemesis, journalist Richard Luthmann, multiple times, no less. Here’s the first claim of “service”:
That one was a “nothing burger,” except for the fact that Jeremy Hales admitted he and his lawyers were in league with Antifa-linked Internet Jihadist Danesh Noshirvan and his scumbag lawyer Nick Chiappetta of Lake Worth, Florida. Hales said Luthmann was served “on the courthouse step in Tampa.”
The only problem is that Luthmann has never been to the Tampa Federal Court.
“The record is clear that the cases I’m party to as a litigant and that I cover as a journalist are in the Fort Myers federal court,” Luthmann said. “There are other people named ‘Richard Luthmann’ inside and outside of Florida. GERM has tried to serve some of them, but he hasn’t served me in compliance with Rule 4 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.”
Jeremy Hales cried wolf a second time:
In reality, all Hales did was dump court papers on a bewildered 72-year-old five hundred miles away. That man happens to be Richard Luthmann Sr. (the reporter’s father), a retiree with zero involvement in Hales’s drama.
Hales crowed victory as if he’d tagged the right man when all he’d done was terrorize a senior citizen.
Luthmann Jr. (the assumed actual intended defendant) immediately set the record straight: Hales “has not served me” and, in fact, “blew his 90‑day deadline” to do so. On August 4, Richard Jr. even sent Hales’s team an unequivocal notice warning that any claim of service at his dad’s home was invalid and fraudulent.
Hales and attorney Randy Shochet knew this – they confirmed receiving that warning – yet they did exactly what they were warned not to do.
Late in September, Hales’s camp filed a proof of service bristling with lies. The affidavit claimed a mysterious “Janet E. Kellier-Moulton,” described as a “step-mother,” accepted papers at Luthmann Sr.’s address.
Richard Sr. unequivocally swears this never happened: “I know no one by that name, and I have no ‘step-mother,’” he declared, calling the affidavit false and perjurious.
No such person was at his home; in fact, no one was served at all. The bogus affidavit even asserts that “Defendant Richard Luthmann” himself somehow confirmed receipt “by posting about it” on YouTube the next day – a pure fabrication that Luthmann Sr. flatly disproved (he’s never appeared on the referenced show).
In short, Hales, Shochet, and their process server previously filed a fraudulent affidavit full of ghost recipients and fictional internet posts to trick the court.
This isn’t just bad lawyering – Luthmann Sr. calls it elder abuse and a malicious sham for online drama. The 72-year-old pharmacist was so outraged that he filed an online crime report and a formal letter to the FBI demanding an investigation. Hales’s stunt has now drawn federal scrutiny: serving the wrong man with knowingly false papers is not just a civil blunder but potentially a crime (perjury, obstruction, even wire fraud).
“He lies and lies and lies,” Michael Volpe said of Hales.
Those lies have finally caught up with Hales, Shochet, and Eugene Griffin, the process server. They’ve done it again.
Hales’s Legal Circus Exposed: “Pocket Rocket” Perjury and the G-Man’s Bad Aim
On the Two Lees in a Pod livestream, Richard Luthmann unloaded on the dirty tricks behind Hales’s lawsuit.
With newly filed court documents in hand, he shredded each falsehood in real time. First up was the question of whom Hales even sued. The case caption still just says “Richard Luthmann” with no Jr. or Sr. – a convenient ambiguity Hales has exploited.
“Look at that case right there… look who the defendant still is: Richard Luthmann,” Luthmann noted. “It’s not Sr. or Jr. or anyone else. It’s just not clear.”
After serving the wrong Richard once, Hales’s team didn’t even bother to clarify which Luthmann they’re after. Then they doubled down with a desperate “Secretary of State” ploy.
In November, Shochet tried to use Florida’s substitute service statute to salvage Hales’s blundering case – essentially handing the summons to the state instead of the defendant. But Shochet’s filing failed to name which Richard Luthmann it was for!
“How can the Secretary of State accept service to ‘Richard Luthmann’ if they still don’t specify which Richard Luthmann it is?” Luthmann railed. “How do they know if he’s in Florida or out of Florida? How do we know there’s not a Richard Luthmann with a hot dog stand on the moon? From these papers, we don’t!”
Florida has at least two Richard Luthmanns (father and son), and Hales’s crew knows it.
“These fools already know where I live and that there is more than one person named ‘RICHARD LUTHMANN’ in the State of Florida,” Luthmann seethed. “By failing to identify the intended target, Shochet’s so-called service is a legal nullity – and he damn well knows it.”
Even worse, to invoke the Secretary of State method, Shochet swore under oath that the defendant is a non-resident or hiding. In a notarized statement, Shochet claimed “the defendant, Richard Luthmann… is a non-resident … concealing his whereabouts.”
Luthmann calls that exactly what it is: perjury.
“That can’t be me, because I’m a resident of the State of Florida, I’m not concealing my whereabouts, and Stevie Wonder could have searched for and found the records of my Florida address,” he fired back on the podcast. “Jeremy Hales is the Ohio carpetbagger. I’m a Floridian.”
Receipts in hand, Luthmann rattled off the proof: a Florida driver’s license, a Declaration of Domicile filed in Collier County years ago – everything showing he lives in Florida, out in the open. He’s a journalist, loudly and publicly covering the lawsuit across multiple platforms, hardly a man in hiding.
Shochet’s affidavit is pure fiction; by calling Luthmann a non-resident, he either targeted the wrong Richard or flat-out lied to the court to skirt the rules. Both possibilities are outrageous.
The supposed “diligent search” for Luthmann Jr. was a sham from the start – they knew exactly where the real Richard was (Naples, FL) but chose to play games.
“They’re saying I concealed my whereabouts – never,” Luthmann scoffed at Shochet’s audacity. “It is a known fact, legally and otherwise, that I am a resident of Florida who is present in the jurisdiction. I’m not hiding. They are hiding from the November 4, 2025, Rule 11 sanctions motion with my address at the bottom. GERM fears LUTHMANN.”
And let’s not forget Hales’s process server, Eugene “G-Man” Griffin – a key henchman in this circus. It was Griffin who signed the original bogus affidavit of service left at the wrong house. That document was riddled with absurd claims and omissions. Griffin never identified who supposedly received the papers (because no one did) and conjured the nonsense about a “stepmother.”
Court filings call out Griffin as an “unethical” server who would sign anything… swearing to lies.” On social media, skeptics are openly questioning Griffin’s conduct, casting doubt on the “G-Man’s” tactics.
Luthmann delivered a parting shot at this shady process server: “I hope that when GERM says ‘The FBI is involved,’ he doesn’t mean the G-Man. That guy looks like a scumbag to me,” he quipped.
In other words, if Hales thinks his “G-Man” is gonna save him, he’s in for a rude awakening. The evidence is clear that Hales, Shochet, and Griffin colluded in a fraudulent charade – a fact not lost on those now digging into this case.
As one legal expert put it, Hales’s entire lawsuit looks like a “planned, orchestrated fraud on the court” from the jump.
Hales’s Legal Circus Exposed: Time to Toss the Case – and the Clowns Behind It
This federal lawsuit has morphed into a full-blown legal farce, and the only proper ending is for the judges to nuke it from orbit. Hales’s 74-page complaint was already a joke – critics say it reads “more like a manic YouTube rant than a legal document,” basically a “textbook shotgun pleading” with vague, bloated accusations.
One laughable claim had Hales whining about LEGO toy jealousy as a criminal conspiracy, as Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier successfully defended against Hales’s antics in a separate case. AG Uthmeier’s Office torched Hales’s recent lawsuit against Levy County State Attorney Dan Owen as “legally ridiculous” – “wholly devoid” of any basis.
The Court dumped the case with prejudice.
In short, Jeremy Hales’s courtroom grift is being recognized for what it is: frivolous, malicious, and doomed.
Now, Judge Robert Hinkle and Magistrate Judge Zachary “Bozo” Bolitho (as Hales mockingly calls him) have Hales’s fraudulent-service freakshow on their docket. The evidence of bad faith is overwhelming.
As Luthmann’s blistering Rule 11 draft motion notice declares, “This is not a routine case of a minor Rule 11 misstep. It is a brazen campaign of abuse.”
The time for patience has passed.
Judge Hinkle and Judge Bolitho should slam this case into the trash without a second thought. Hales’s phony “service” never hit its mark, and no court can tolerate a plaintiff who lies about it and tries to ram through jurisdiction by deceit.
The judges have every reason to not only throw out the suit but also hammer the Plaintiff and everyone involved with him with stiff sanctions.
Luthmann says if he is compelled to become legally involved, he will ask for “no less than $50,000” in penalties to punish Hales and Shochet – and frankly, that’s just for starters. This charade has wasted judicial resources and victimized innocent people; consequences should go beyond dollars.
Perjury was committed here – multiple counts – and that’s a matter for the FBI and federal prosecutors. Submitting a false affidavit is a crime, period.
Shochet, already infamous as a “fraudster in a suit” with a history of lies, should face immediate investigation by the state Bar and disbarment proceedings. Florida’s Bar has been asleep at the switch, letting this guy in to begin with.
Griffin, the so-called G-Man, should be referred to state authorities for perjury and licensing sanctions – process servers don’t get to invent people and get away with it.
In the end, Richard Luthmann Jr.’s prediction is likely to come true: he expects Jeremy Hales in handcuffs and Shochet stripped of his law license “very, very quickly.”
This court has all it needs to make that happen.
It’s time for Judge Hinkle and Judge Bolitho to prove that justice isn’t blind – or aloof. Toss this fraudulent lawsuit for good, sanction the living hell out of Hales, Shochet, and Griffin, and hand the whole foul mess over to the FBI, the Florida Bar, and any judicial committee that will listen. Anything less would be a miscarriage of justice.
The message needs to be loud and clear: Florida’s federal courts are not a YouTuber’s playground, and liars who abuse the system will face the full consequences of their con.
Here is Luthmann’s full Two Lees in a Pod appearance:
