NOTE: This piece first appeared on NYNewsPress.com.
By Dick LaFontaine with Richard Luthmann
Unlikely Allies in a High-Stakes Feud
Richard Luthmann, a former Staten Island lawyer infamous for once demanding a Game of Thrones-style trial by combat in court, resurfaced on the YouTube podcast Two Lees in a Pod to unload on his longtime nemesis.
Luthmann, 45, served four years in prison after pleading guilty to conspiracies involving fraud and extortion, but he insists his downfall was no ordinary crime saga. On air with hosts Lisa Lee, cousin Kendra, and Robbie Keszey, Luthmann painted himself as the target of a personal vendetta by Staten Island District Attorney Michael McMahon.
Lee is an online commentator and co-host of the show, while Keszey – a Florida reptile wrangler and ex-reality TV star of Discovery’s Swamp Brothers – has his own checkered past. The trio converged in a recent episode, and it didn’t take long for sparks to fly.
“Hey, hey, hey. What is going on, everybody? … I might be in jail in New York soon,” Lee read in the opening, teeing up Luthmann’s explosive story.
The ex-lawyer wasted no time: “I got this a–hole DA up in New York named Michael McMahon,” Luthmann growled.
He claimed McMahon, a former congressman-turned-prosecutor, has been gunning for him since 2015, when Luthmann publicly opposed McMahon’s election and even lampooned him with mocking Facebook pages.
McMahon won that race – allegedly with dead people signing his petitions, Luthmann quipped.
According to Luthmann, McMahon never forgave the humiliation.
What began as political rivalry has now morphed into a deeply personal war, and Luthmann is fighting back in the court of public opinion.
DA McMahon’s “Weaponized” Justice and Bogus Warrant Scheme
Luthmann leveled jaw-dropping accusations at District Attorney McMahon, accusing him of “weaponizing” the legal system to settle a score. In a fiery rant, Luthmann alleged McMahon and his allies abused their power to “engineer” criminal cases against him.
“People wanna know, why did this guy go away to jail? It’s because of this guy,” Luthmann said, pointing the finger squarely at McMahon.
He claims McMahon orchestrated a federal fraud prosecution – “a hatchet job, weaponized justice” – and a state case in which McMahon himself played the “victim.”
Having served time behind bars, Luthmann now finds himself facing fresh legal peril that he insists is trumped-up. The ex-attorney says McMahon recently complained about receiving a single Substack email that Luthmann’s newsletter sent out – an email Luthmann swears he didn’t even write, and which wasn’t about McMahon at all.
Yet McMahon allegedly told police that the email violated a protective order and made him fear for his life, transforming it into a felony contempt charge. Luthmann calls the charge bogus, noting he never agreed to any such order, and “one email” hardly justifies an accusation of death threats.
According to Luthmann, McMahon bypassed due process by issuing an NYPD “I-card” – essentially an alert that flags Luthmann as wanted without any judge’s approval.
“There’s no probable cause… It’s the word of the DA acting as a private citizen,” Luthmann fumed.
The real shocker? Luthmann claims McMahon’s endgame is to extradite him from his current home in Florida on a phony warrant and subject him to “diesel therapy” – a cruel ride on the inmate transport bus meant to break his spirit.
If McMahon gets one of his “crony judges” on Staten Island to rubber-stamp a felony warrant, Luthmann says, “they can hand it to the US Marshals or the Florida authorities to come arrest me. And then they put me in what’s called diesel therapy.”
In law enforcement slang, diesel therapy is the punishment of shackling a prisoner and transporting them for days or weeks on end.
Luthmann outlined the nightmare scenario: first, he’d fight extradition from a Florida jail for a month or two; lose that, and he’d be shackled on a bus crawling from Florida to New York, a journey of 4–6 weeks with stopovers at grim lockups along the way.
Finally delivered to New York’s notorious Rikers Island, he’d be hauled into court – at which point, Luthmann says, the DA could casually drop the case.
“They could take three months of my life on a bogus warrant, and I can’t do a f—ing thing about it because this is lawfare,” Luthmann vented.
In his telling, McMahon’s plan isn’t to win in court but to punish through process a scorched-earth retaliation outside the bounds of justice.
The Staten Island DA’s office has not publicly responded to Luthmann’s claims, but the embattled lawyer is already marshaling support in high places.
Trump Insiders Track the ‘Weaponization’ Allegations
Luthmann isn’t just making noise on YouTube – he says he’s sounding alarms with insiders from former President Donald Trump’s circle about his situation. During the podcast, Luthmann revealed he has been in touch with the Justice Department’s Office of the Pardon Attorney, now led by Ed Martin (a Trump appointee). The Pardon Attorney is also the Chair of the DOJ’s Weaponization Working Group.
According to Luthmann, allies in Trump-world are closely watching how McMahon handles his case.
“Now that President Trump is in, we can do something about it,” Luthmann said, suggesting the political winds have shifted. He name-dropped a roster of Trump loyalists that he claims are noticed: Pam Bondi (the U.S. Attorney General and Trump defender), Dan Bongino (Assistant FBI Director and ex-Secret Service agent), and Kash Patel (FBI Director and former Trump national security aide), among others.
“I have people reaching out to Pam Bondi, to Dan Bongino, to Kash Patel, to all the people in the Trump administration,” Luthmann declared.
The implication: if McMahon pushes what Luthmann deems a corrupt warrant, these heavy-hitters might push back. Luthmann even warned that McMahon and company could face consequences under new federal initiatives against “weaponization of justice.”
“If they go and they do this warrant, then… they may get prosecuted for weaponization of justice, because there’s no basis for this. This is them weaponizing justice,” he said emphatically.
To bolster his case, Luthmann claims he has receipts – literally an audio recording – proving the abuse of power. His attorney phoned an NYPD warrant squad detective, who bragged that because the “victim” was the DA, “we’re gonna get everything we want” from a Staten Island judge and haul Luthmann back by force.
“The guy was trying to intimidate my guy… but the fact that we got it on tape, that’s corruption,” Luthmann said, alleging the detective admitted that if the complainant weren’t the DA, “this wouldn’t even be a charge.”
Luthmann has filed an internal affairs complaint against the officers involved and an ethical grievance against McMahon with the state bar. It’s an audacious move: the ousted attorney is effectively accusing the borough’s top prosecutor of a vendetta and inviting federal scrutiny.
For now, he’s not running – Luthmann remains in Florida, defiantly daring New York to come get him while his political patrons-in-waiting monitor from Washington.
Florida Lawsuit Circus: “They’re Afraid to Serve Me”
As if battling one legal front weren’t enough, Luthmann is also entangled in a wild lawsuit down in Florida – and he says his opponents are literally scared to hand him the papers.
YouTuber Jeremy Hales, best known for his “What The Hale$” channel, has filed a federal lawsuit in Gainesville accusing Lisa Lee, Robbie Keszey, Richard Luthmann, and others of orchestrating an online smear campaign against him.
Rather than shy away, Luthmann is goading Hales and his team to bring it on. In the podcast, he taunted Hales and his cohort (derisively calling them a “brain trust” of “morons”) for making grand accusations online but hesitating to formally serve him with the lawsuit.
“Why don’t you come up with a good story of why you haven’t served me yet… ’cause you’re afraid of me,” Luthmann sneered, looking straight into the camera.
According to Luthmann, Hales and his “cabal” know that delivering him a summons will invite a world of hurt, legally speaking.
“You know I’m gonna take your money, you know I’m gonna… bleed you dry,” he warned, bragging that he’s “judgment-proof” with nothing to lose.
Indeed, Luthmann vowed to drag out the case and “make [their lawyer] Randy Shochet’s life a living hell in discovery” if it ever proceeds. Co-host Lee chimed in that she thinks Hales is “scared” of what Luthmann is capable of, a sentiment Luthmann did not dispute.
The lawsuit itself reads like a digital-age soap opera: Hales, an Ohio-based influencer with hundreds of thousands of followers, accuses a group of rival YouTubers (including Lee and Keszey) of defamation and even “malicious prosecution” over online drama.
Lee revealed on-air that some defendants were added or dropped in a flurry of legal maneuvers and that her side has sent stern warnings to Hales’s attorney about pursuing frivolous claims. But the centerpiece of this sideshow is Luthmann’s absence from it, at least officially.
By his account, Hales’s team is avoiding serving him in Florida, perhaps to dodge a courtroom confrontation with a man who’s as comfortable filing motions as he is hurling insults.
“We’ll see if [Jeremy’s] even gonna serve you. I don’t think he’s gonna serve me. If he was gonna serve me, he would’ve done it already,” Luthmann said confidently.
In true tabloid fashion, he dared his opponent to step up: sue me if you can, and face the consequences. With the clock ticking on that Gainesville case, it remains to be seen if Hales will call Luthmann’s bluff – or continue to wage the battle through dueling YouTube broadsides.
From Inmate to “Jailhouse Lawyer” – Tales of Survival Behind Bars
Luthmann’s saga wouldn’t be complete without the unbelievable twist that once he was actually imprisoned from 2017 to 2021 – which he insists was the result of McMahon’s revenge – he managed to turn prison into a profitable enterprise.
On the podcast, the self-styled legal gladiator recounted how he became a “jailhouse lawyer” behind bars, earning respect and commissary cash from fellow inmates for his ability to beat the system.
“I had the best muscle in prison because I was getting people out,” Luthmann bragged about his time in federal lockup.
He stated that during the COVID-19 pandemic, he assisted inmates in securing sentence reductions and compassionate releases, effectively serving as an informal attorney for the incarcerated. Luthmann described striking an underworld “business” deal with prison shot-callers: he would handle the paperwork and legal strategy for their crew, and in exchange, he got protection and payment.
“I was doing that with everybody, and the Italians loved me, the Bloods loved me,” he recounted. “I got the head of the Bloods… by the end of the day, he was sitting down with MS-13, and we were getting their people [help].”
Soon, Luthmann says, he was virtually untouchable on the cellblock – his assigned cell effectively turned into “the law office.” Guards would let him hold court each morning, coffee in hand, drafting motions and coaching inmates on pleas for a few hours a day. The payoff was more than just goodwill.
“I was making so much money in jail,” Luthmann laughed, recalling how he once “broke the bookie” by winning big on football bets. With his commissary account flush (there are only so many ramen noodles and stamped envelopes one can buy), he took to high-stakes gambling behind bars out of sheer boredom.
“I was gambling crazy… betting on hockey. I didn’t know s— about hockey… It was f—ing great,” he said with a grin.
Luthmann’s prison stories are a vivid mix of ingenuity and audacity, much like the man himself. He emerged from custody not broken, but emboldened, having parlayed legal know-how into clout on the inside.
Now, back on the outside, Luthmann is channeling that same scrappy energy to fight what he calls “weaponized justice” in the streets and courts.
Whether his claims against DA McMahon hold water, and if his Florida foes dare to face him, remains to be seen. But one thing’s for sure: Richard Luthmann isn’t done raising hell – in court, on YouTube, or anywhere else – and he’ll happily sit in a cell again if that’s what it takes to prove his point.
“In a heartbeat, I’d do it,” he said about the prospect of more jail time. “F— these people. I’d be a millionaire on the way out.”
