NOTE: This piece first appeared on FLGulfNews.com.
By Frankie Pressman with Michael Volpe and Richard Luthmann
GERM’S GRAND DELUSION: SHOTGUN LAWSUITS GALORE
Jeremy “Germ” Hales has turned litigation into a personal content strategy, firing off lawsuits in all directions. The resale YouTuber-turned-serial plaintiff is “suing everyone in sight,” from former friends to journalists.
In one sweeping federal suit naming eleven defendants, Hales claims they’re all part of a vast “conspiracy” out to destroy him.
But the complaint reads more like a manic YouTube rant than a legal document. It’s essentially a textbook shotgun pleading – “vague, bloated, and riddled with unsupported accusations.”
On The Unknown Podcast’s latest “What the Hales” segment, co-hosts Michael Volpe and Richard Luthmann Jr. skewered Hales’ tactics. Volpe noted Hales juggles nearly twenty active cases at once, calling it a drama factory to feed his channel.
In one case, Jeremy Hales sought a civil protective order in Summit County, Ohio, against his Florida neighbors. Michael Volpe said it “expires tomorrow.” Before it lapsed, Hales “ran to the court to file a frivolous motion.” The motion asked for contempt and an extension with a firearms ban.
Hales claimed the neighbors were “filming me coming and leaving my property and providing footage to others to post online.” He offered “no evidence of any of the times and dates” or links. He alleged “third parties have made threats against my life.” Volpe called it “one of the most awful motions I’ve ever seen.”
Luthmann didn’t mince words either: “It’s abuse of process… There’s no conspiracy. It’s a grand delusion wrapped in malice, calculation, and intent.”
He blasted Hales’ lawsuit as a reckless SLAPP meant to muzzle critics. In fact, Hales’ antics have drawn more than ridicule – they’ve drawn federal attention.
After Hales bragged online about a phony legal “victory,” his alleged fraud on the court prompted Luthmann’s 72-year-old father to file an FBI complaint accusing “Germ” and his lawyer of elder abuse and perjury.
Hales may have hoped his legal blitz would silence dissent, but instead he’s only weaponized the courts for clicks – and put himself under a microscope.
JEREMY HALES ALLIGATOR GATE: JUDGE BOZO’S COURTROOM CIRCUS
If Hales expected a sympathetic ear in court, he got a sideshow instead. Magistrate Judge Zachary C. “Bozo” Bolitho has presided over the case with all the finesse of a clown car driver. Frustrated by Hales’ endless filings and theatrics, Bolitho once snapped at the warring lawyers to “bring your checkbooks,” likening them to children clogging the docket.
“I can put you in jail,” one attorney recounts Bolitho said, drunk with power and prune juice.
But Judge Bozo’s attempt to restore order just poured gasoline on the fire. When Richard Luthmann Sr. – the elderly father Hales wrongly served – filed two scathing pro se documents exposing Hales’ antics, Bolitho struck them from the record in one broad swipe.
His October 8 order sniffed that Luthmann Sr.’s filings had “an obscene and improper caption” (they colorfully labeled Hales a degenerate “alligator f*cker” among other insults) and decreed “[b]oth documents are stricken.”
In effect, Judge Bozo tried to wipe away Luthmann’s allegations of fraud and elder abuse without even a hearing.
The response was instant karma in the court of public opinion. One commentator observed that proceedings under Bolitho “degenerated into chaos… a sideshow rather than a judicial process.”
Luthmann noted that “this case has become a clown show, and Judge ‘Bozo’ is in the center ring.”
Public ridicule of Bolitho’s heavy-handedness has turned him into a legal punchline. Even a commenter (satirically posing as “Judge Bozo” himself) mockingly lamented that Hales is a “paid internet agitator, elder abuser, [and] degenerate closeted homosexual alligator f*cker,” joking that such antics will keep Bolitho stuck as a junior varsity judge forever.
Instead of silencing criticism, Judge Bozo’s gag order on Luthmann Sr. has only amplified the circus – and raised questions about whether the ringmaster has lost control of his tent.
JEREMY HALES ALLIGATOR GATE: FIRST AMENDMENT FURY
Richard A. Luthmann Sr. isn’t taking Judge Bozo’s muzzle lying down. The feisty 72-year-old (and only “Luthmann” Hales actually managed to serve) says he has filed a withering set of Rule 72 objections, effectively appealing Magistrate Bolitho’s decision to the higher court.
In his legal brief, Luthmann Sr. accuses Bolitho of trampling on free speech rights to shield Hales. He argues that by branding his satirical filings “improper” and erasing them, the judge “conducted impermissible viewpoint discrimination”, punishing protected political speech simply because of its tone.
The objections cite the First Amendment chapter and verse: “to strike them because they employ satire or indignation is to elevate decorum above democracy… the precise evil the First Amendment forbids.”
Luthmann Sr. points out that his filings exposed serious wrongdoing – “perjured affidavits, false statements… and a deliberate campaign to weaponize process servers against an elderly man” – yet Judge Bolitho ignored these explosive allegations to focus on naughty words.
By “silenc[ing] the victim” and leaving Hales’s fraudulent affidavit unchallenged, Bolitho effectively buried evidence of crimes and denied Luthmann Sr. a voice.
Now Luthmann Sr. wants one of the district’s Article III judge to right this wrong. He’s urging that Bolitho’s order be vacated, his filings reinstated, and that “Judge Bozo” recuse himself for blatant bias.
Federal law demands a judge step aside whenever their “impartiality might reasonably be questioned” – and after being openly mocked as a clown and dubbed “Bozo” in the press, Bolitho’s impartiality is in tatters.
The Luthmann camp is confident that Jeremy Hales’s legal rampage will be stopped in its tracks. Whether by the district judge now or by the Eleventh Circuit on appeal, they insist Hales will lose.
And with a spotlight now on Judge Bolitho’s antics, they predict both GERM and Judge BOZO are on borrowed time. In this wild courtroom carnival, the First Amendment is about to drop the final curtain – and there will be Hale$ to Pay.
