A New York restaurant said Time Warner Cable submitted
falsified evidence to support a claim of cable piracy.
In a U.S. District Court motion, Halkios Restaurant Corp.,
operating as the Silver Spoon Diner, asked for a dismissal of the theft-of-service lawsuit
that Time Warner filed against it.
Glenn Greenwald, a New York attorney representing the
restaurant, said Time Warner brings "hundreds" of these lawsuits against small
businesses, then demands that they settle for between $4,000 and $5,000.
Almost all of them are based on evidence gathered by ACI
Investigations, an outside detective agency owned by Thomas Allen, Time Warner's
director of security.
In this case, Time Warner submitted Allen's notes to
the court, which indicated that he met with Sgt. Joseph Regula, of the Internal Affairs
Bureau of the New York Police Department, in May 1996, concerning Silver Spoon.
Greenwald said that meeting could not have taken place,
since Regula was not employed by the IAB until four months later. Moreover, Regula has
since testified that the meeting did not take place.
Greenwald said that when he began pressing for
Regula's name, the MSO immediately tried to settle the case for no money.
If the courts dismiss the suit, Greenwald said, he plans to
sue Time Warner under the Racketeering, Information & Corrupt Organizations Act
(RICO).
"It's extortion to demand a settlement if you
don't have a basis for a lawsuit," he said.
A Time Warner official declined to comment on the pending
litigation, except to characterize Greenwald's accusation as "absurd and
false."
