Government Bounty Hunters Stalking My Dog Lamont
Mutt sought to step in and pay for broken U.S. health care system
By Nate Thayer
October 26, 2014
Facebook is a very odd and insidious concept and one has to keep more on one's toes than we usually realize.
Today I noticed that one nemesis of my pal, my dog Lamont, a bounty hunter on the payroll of people trying to bring fugitives from justice and other threats to the stability of the Free World on the loose, was snooping around my FB page under an alias and purporting to be someone he is not.
Lamont may be the ruin of me yet. The lovable but insufferable mutt has a long record of dragging me into one kerfuffle after another with polite society, plunging me into the deep end of Big Trouble.
Message sent today to a Bounty Hunter Enforcer for the U.S. government targeting my dog, Lamont:
"Stuart": WTF…I am more than happy to have you as a FB pal. And I mean that. As long as you aren't trying to waste my time trying to serve me again with a redux of that goofy warrant against my dog. Last I checked, that suit was dropped by the fucking lawyers who came to their senses and realized that trying to sue and milk cash out of a black, illegal immigrant, 8 1/2 inch tall mongrel dog-who to boot is 100% innocent of having anything to do with the fractured skull of the insured federal USG employee who, in writing, told me he knew exactly that and only knew my name because I saved his comatose butt and called the ambulance, etc etc-then all is good, and welcome to my FB page.
If however you are trying again to locate me, you have my fucking telephone number, just as you did last time before playing a 4th rate James Bond to play out the government paycheck clock claiming my dog, Lamont, was avoiding your professional sleuthing efforts.. Just call me and tell me I need to call the shyster ambulance chasers again .
I hope all is well on your front. The above is sincere. As far as I know, that whole case is history-dropped after they came to their senses re: suing a dog. They informed the court they were retracting the claim etc etc because the bonehead lawyers-mainly-realized I was "judgement proof", regardless of their offensive abuse of the judicial system and realized they would never see a dime-via settlement or anything else. That is for (a) because my dog-for once in the mutt's life-is innocent and (b) because I have no cash, house, car, insurance etc etc even if (a) was not true. Whatever, if your following my FB page is for work, I suggest you just give me a call on the number you have (which is 443 205 9162). If you are off duty and just following my FB posts cause you like them, then welcome and carry on, my friend…Best, Nate"
Here is some of the back story:
In early March, I launched a crowd sourcing campaign to fund the production of my book "Sympathy for the Devil: A Reporter's Memoir from Inside Pol Pot's Cambodia", in which people could support the book by pre-ordering copies or making donations to cover the pre-publication production costs. Immediately, the response appeared encouraging.
On March 4, I received a message posted as a comment to my website http://www.nate-thayer.com from a fellow who indicated he wanted to support the publication of my book.
He wrote, "Thank you for all that you do. I truly enjoy reading the truth. No one else reports on what matters, and if they do, I can't seem to find it."
"I'd very much like to give you a donation to keep on doing what you do so very well. Unfortunately, I'm against paying via the Internet and phone as I have been burned in the past….Is it possible to meet somewhere sometime over coffee or a beer or two."
Sincerely, & thankfully,
Stuart W. Macpherson"
I called Stuart, who was effusive in praise claiming he had read my work extensively and wanted to support the book project with what he implied was substantial financial backing. As Stuart lived in my city of residence, Washington, D.C, I agreed to his request to meet in person and invited him over to my house to meet over coffee.
Stuart arrived a few days later, and I welcomed into my home. Once across the threshold of my doorway, he gave me a smarmy, guilty insincere smile.
It turns out Stuart was not the fellow he had represented himself as. He was trying to arrest Lamont.
"I am not here to donate for your book. I am here to serve you court papers for a lawsuit against you," he said.
That is when I learned that my dog, Lamont, was being sued for $100,000 and, "per se", guess whose pockets they were trying to extract that from?
Right. Me.
Agents of the United States government were storming Lamont's Washington D.C. home and serving the 8 ½ inch tall insurgent mutt a court summons to appear in the Superior Court for the District of Columbia, Washington, D.C. in Case No: 2013-CA 8469 B in front of Judge Laura A. Cordero, for a lawsuit demanding the midget mongrel cough up $100,000 for causing the fractured skull and other grievous bodily harm to a human.
In one grand, epic swoop, the four-legged walking disaster of a mutt, Lamont, had not only managed to be the dark force inciting a legal action that threatened to bankrupt me, he had managed to hit the double jackpot by putting the very source of his room, board, and copious cookie supply in jeopardy.
The canine mongrel saboteur par excellence had (rather impressively I might add) managed to put my book crowd funding campaign $100,000 in the red before it ever got off the ground to boot. And he did so without ever leaving the couch.
Lamont, did, however, accompany me to greet the Covert Agent of the United States Government at the door and witnessed the above exchange, listened carefully, absorbed the implications of the service of the ominous looking documents which carried the full force and authority of the world's greatest military power, and pondered the future of his cookie supply in the event his human was incarcerated.
Immediately, Lamont displayed his considerable charm, infectious personality, unique pluck, innate intelligence and devastating, non-traditional good looks, to woo and melt the stone cold heart of the law agent. Within seconds he was assaulting Bounty Hunter Macpherson with smooches, revealing the inner killer beast he was accused of as being a Bald Fiction.
The Superior Court of the District of Columbia legal action was "demanding judgment against the Defendant for compensatory damages in the amount of One Hundred Thousand Dollars ($100,00.00), plus interest, costs, and what further relief this Court may deem appropriate."
His beleaguered and exhausted public relations crisis intervention specialist and co-defendant—that would me—made clear Lamont was innocent of the entirely specious allegations.
Let's take a look at the legal merits of the court action filed against Lamont.
My pal, Lamont, and I were enjoying our evening constitutional around 6:00 PM on January 9, 2013 in Abraham Lincoln Public Park, a public space in the shadow of the White House where citizens, both canine and human can take in exercise and fresh air after an arduous day of running the machinery of the Free World.
As dusk fell over Washington, D.C., near the base of the statue of the man who authored the Emancipation Proclamation and freed the slaves, my nation's first mentally ill, gay head of state, Lamont was romping with his canine buddies, racing at the speed of football wide receivers round and round yapping and barking and growling and engaging in faux fisticuffs with each other, the ten-pound-when-wet-mongrel demonstrating his impressive athletic skills and evasive maneuvers on a grassy field where a few dozen canines and their humans gathered nightly.
Abraham Lincoln Park was first the location of a Union Army hospital during the American Civil War in the mid-19th century.
On the night of January 9 last year, it was, once again, the scene of proverbial carnage-mine-and, as has proven the norm whenever disaster strikes, Lamont was indeed in the vicinity.
The horrific sound of a skull cracking against concrete behind me forced my attention away from keeping an eagle eye on the antics of Lamont, and I turned to see a man, outfitted in spandex, with an IPod attached by Velcro to his arm, and earplugs in his ear, splayed unconscious, bleeding from his forehead and ears, his body motionless, unconscious and lifeless.
A grim loud silence enveloped the entire Abraham Lincoln Park, as all dogs and humans came to a halt, as happens when a potential tragedy is occurring in one's midst.
Pete McElhinney, an Irishman working for the U.S. federal government as a curator at the Smithsonian Museum, had apparently been jogging on his evening constitutional, went airborne, and landed on his head on the concrete walkway. I say apparently because of out of the 30 or so humans in the vicinity, all of whom were watching their dogs engaging in the canine version of the evening's cocktail hour, no one actually saw Pete fall. Because we were all watching our dogs. Who were not on the concrete sidewalk behind us where Pete lay unconscious. And none of whom had collided with Pete.
But I rushed over to Pete, stabilized him, and called an ambulance.
"Don't move," I said, as I held his head firmly down with my left hand while restraining Lamont from bestowing smooches on the man with my right hand. I pulled out my cell phone and dialed 911. "I need an ambulance in Lincoln Park," I said.
I held the phone to my ear with my shoulder, while one hand kept Pete's head firmly immobile and the other tried to restrain the whimpering, now guilty-looking, droopy eyed Lamont from smooching Pete.
Pete groaned cooperatively, as my mongrel pal, Lamont, with a chagrined expression sat staring up at me sat next to me, fearing his cookie privilege's might be in jeopardy.
I stayed on the phone with emergency medical professionals taking their instructions and administering them to Pete for the 20 minutes before the ambulance arrived and Pete was attended to and placed on a stretcher and inserted into the emergency vehicle, and departed.
The only reason Pete, who was still knocked senseless by the time paramedics arrived, knew my name was because I took down Pete's phone number and I slipped my card into his pocket as he was wheeled by stretcher from the park.
Pete was released from hospital after a week, the doctor's having determined he fractured his skull and had bleeding in the brain. There was a threat, because of the location of the skull fracture, that spinal fluid might leak and cause permanent paralysis. He remained deaf in his right ear, but the doctors were hopeful it would return after time. He did not return to work for a number of days after his release. Only after a month was the medical device holding his injured shoulder removed.
But Pete did return to the dog park upon his release to thank those who had helped him during his horrific accident, specifically extending effusive gratitude to me for my minor efforts on his behalf. "I don't remember anything," said Pete. "I just remember I was running and then waking up in hospital."
Pete wrote me in one email: "Thanks so much for all your help when I was injured. I don't remember anything that happened, but people told me that you were very kind and professional. If it wasn't for you, I might have had more permanent and worse injuries. The last thing I remember was I was jogging and then I woke up in hospital."
Almost immediately, Pete became starkly and vocally unimpressed with the U.S. healthcare and medical insurance system. As an Irishman living in a properly organized European country, Pete was used to free national health care systems where questions of accumulating bills capable of bankrupting the patient when one suffers grievous injuries is simply unheard of.
Pete complained that his full medical coverage as a U.S. Federal Government employee was refusing to pay for medical bills that quickly exceeded $17,000 for the hospital stay, and thousands more for the ambulance ride, the doctor's bills, physical therapy sessions and more.
His insurance company argued to him that the ambulance ride to transport his fractured skull and unconscious self to the hospital emergency room was unnecessary and refused to cover those costs. The insurance refused to pay for his week as an inpatient in hospital, arguing it was unnecessary as he was admitted from intensive care to the general patient ward "for observation", which indicated his injuries were not serious .
They argued that the fees for his thrice weekly physical rehabilitation to regain full use of his arm and shoulder were unnecessary and declared they would only cover $50 of the $150 dollar per session.
They would not pay to treat his severely impaired hearing damaged by the blow that fractured his skull and damaged nerves in his head.
Pete told me that what was driving him crazy was the endless paperwork and documents demanded by the insurance companies, the incessant arguing, and the energy sucking time on the phone and on hold that was the psychological warfare of the medical insurance company.
Hence the decision by Pete to sue my dog, my pal Lamont, to cover the costs of the broken U.S. health care system.
The U.S. federal government's strategy to fix the broken U.S. health care system was to ask Lamont-an insolvent, pea-brained, pan-sexual, black, unemployed, illegal immigrant, big-snouted, droopy-eyed, bow-legged, ridiculous looking, 8 1/2-inch-tall, two-year old mongrel canine born in a Mexican trash dump-to step in and solve the American health care crisis.
Despite being a selfless cross-species public servant of substantial renown and accomplishment, Lamont suggested that government resources reduced to seeking the financial intervention of an insubordinate midget dog as the solution to fix the broken national health care system , might better benefit from a bit more tweaking.
The Superior Court of the District of Columbia legal action concluded "demanding judgment against the Defendant for compensatory damages in the amount of One Hundred Thousand Dollars ($100,00.00), plus interest, costs, and what further relief this Court may deem appropriate."
On May 21, Lamont received a comment on his blog page https://lemuttlamont.wordpress.com from Attorney Frank E. Hudson the 3rd.
"I write you on behalf of the Law Office of Kirk Rankin & Associates. Mr. Rankin represents Peter McElhinney in a lawsuit against you in DC Superior Court. You were served with the Summons and Complaint but have not filed an Answer, so the Court has entered a Default against you. Please contact our office at (703) 532-2700 to discuss this matter."
I spoke then to the law offices and they appeared to come to their sense, assuring me that they had dropped the lawsuit-mainly because I convinced them that I had no money they might be able to extort from me.
My recommendation to Attorney Hudson is: If you want to try to hold the black, pan-sexual, illegal immigrant, mongrel canine born in a trash dump in Mexico responsible for the collapsed U.S. health care system, while skimming a few bucks off of the top to line your pockets with one-third of the winnings from the poor fellow with the fractured skull, good luck to you.
But please, in all sincerity and as a friendly bit of advice from a voice of experience, it will only get very ugly and will not end well for you. Believe me, I know about these things. If you are going to try to out smart the wily canine, you are going to lose.
This goes for the Bounty Hunter, Stewart W. Macpherson as well:
Lamont has chosen to be judged in the court of public opinion.
My hunch is the insufferable mongrel will come out on top in his usual, inimitable way. ■