A new filing by Jose “Chille” DeCastro on Monday saw the YouTuber again ask for a second extension in serving Josh Abrams, Kate Peter and Dale “Lackluster” Hiller as part of his defamation case in which he’s seeking $1,000,000.00 in damages from the trio.
The lawsuit stems from a pair of livestreams involving defendant Abrams. Abrams was joined by Peter and Abrams in a 2022 livestream where they made a number of statements about DeCastro that were based on loosely known rumors about DeCastro at the time of the livestream. Some of the rumors proved true, others proved to be false.
A second livestream held in 2025 saw Abrams acknowledge that DeCastro was suing him and that further disparaged the YouTuber. According to DeCastro’s amended complaint, filed before attempts at service, he lost around 400 subscribers following that broadcast, showing that his brand was damaged.
DeCastro’s inability to find the three defendants, other than statements that he searched online for their information has been problematic with his claims of having exhausted all means of tracking their mailing addresses down.
No evidence was provided that DeCastro did any of the searches or exhausted his ability to find the defendants. While he had previously been granted a 60-day extension to serve the defendants, and likely will have his second request granted, DeCastro is attempting to set the stage for e-mail service.
Copies of e-mails DeCastro sent to Peter, Hiller and Abrams with the service paperwork were included in his previous request for an extension. They are missing in his second attempt to do so.
Instead, DeCastro changes tactics, laying out that Abrams acknowledged the lawsuit in a livestream. To prove that Hiller is aware of the lawsuit, DeCastro took a different tactic. This time claiming:
On August 30, 2025, Plaintiff conducted a YouTube livestream titled “WHAT TO DO WHEN YOU ARE PULLED OVER – WE DON’T STOP!” on his Delete Lawz channel. During this livestream, at timestamp 2:48:05, Plaintiff discovered that defendant Dale Hiller (who operates online as “Lackluster”) was present in the audience after someone gifted Hiller a free channel membership. A screenshot of the video showing the relevant timestamps with the YouTube transcript panel is attached as Exhibit A. The complete video remains publicly available on YouTube.
The circumstances surrounding Hiller’s presence demonstrate both the irony of his conduct and the appropriateness of alternative service. In the video that forms the basis of this defamation action, Hiller stated that Plaintiffs “MO is to sit in the crowd and just lurk and not add anything to the comments if he’s not the main topic of discussion.” Yet on August 30, 2025, Hiller did precisely what he falsely accused Plaintiff of doing: he sat silently in Plaintiffs livestream audience, contributing nothing to the discussion, lurking without comment. Only the automated notification of his gifted membership revealed his presence, indicating he was intentionally monitoring Plaintiffs content anonymously.
Upon discovering Hiller in his audience at timestamp 2:48:05, Plaintiff immediately attempted informal resolution. At timestamp 2:48:12, Plaintiff directly addressed Hiller during the livestream: “Lackluster, check your email, man. Check your email, dude. Check your email, dude. Lackluster, let’s close the gap, man. Let’s close the gap. Let’s let’s let’s end this. I sent you an email, dude.” (Exhibit A).
And:
Despite being present in Plaintiffs livestream when these settlement overtures were made, and despite Plaintiff’s direct public appeal to “check your email,” Hiller did not respond to either email. Hiller continued to monitor the livestream silently-lurking, in his own terminology-but refused to engage in settlement discussions or provide an address for service. Plaintiff also contacted Hiller’s attorney (referenced in Abrams’ fundraising video), who similarly did not respond to inquiries about service or settlement.
DeCastro offered proof of Hiller’s presence at his livestream that day with an exhibit showing the transcription of his comment announcing that Hiller had received a gifted membership to his channel. He did not include the list of chat participants showing that Hiller was participating in the chat.
Furthermore, DeCastro’s claims are problematic at best as gifted memberships on YouTube are distributed randomly. Those members who purchase gifted memberships for others do not have the ability to pick the recipients of the gifted memberships.
As the awarding is random, membership gifting is loosely open to anyone who has ever visited the channel, participated in chat or watched a video on the channel. Presence in the chat for the livestream where the gifted membership was received is not required.
To show this, we conducted our own experiment on Monday, November 3, 2025. YouTube awards content creators the ability to gift ten gifted memberships a month. As with all gifted memberships, when awarded, they’re distributed to random individuals who may have tangentially browsed the channel at some time in the past.
We distributed 10 gifted memberships in two groups of five, with none of the recipients of the gifted memberships being observed in chat at the time of the gifting.
This is not the first time DeCastro has failed to understand the nature of gifted memberships. Famously, in 2023 as he was falling out with former channel partner Collin Campbell, he discovered that a membership had been gifted to a channel he considered to be run by one of his enemies. He accused Campbell of directly gifting the membership to that channel and used the “fact” as part of his need to sever ties with his former partner.
While offering statements showing that he believes Abrams and Hiller have knowledge of his lawsuit, DeCastro ignores defendant Kate Peter completely. Offering no proof of attempts at service or her public acknowledgement of his legal action against her.
DeCastro has previously successfully served Peter and Abrams with an unsuccessful 2022 federal defamation lawsuit that later morphed into a copyright infringement lawsuit against YouTube.
He also attempted to serve Peter with a California based defamation lawsuit in 2023, which saw the clerk of the court hold Peter in default for not responding to successful service. The YouTuber has yet to attempt to turn the default into a default judgment against Peter.
As he was ignoring a third of the defendants in the case, DeCastro confusingly parroted wording from his own lawsuit against John “Irish Demon” O’Dea to justify e-mail service in this case.
E-mail service was granted in that case as it was shown that O’Dea had provided a false address in his response to DMCA takedown notices by DeCastro. It also involved a client living overseas and made a coherent case that showed O’Dea openly acknowledging the lawsuit in a livestream.
Other than DeCastro’s statement that he attempted service and couldn’t find addresses for any of the defendants to initiate service, he offered no real proof that the defendants provided false information or circumvented the service process in any way.
In the end, DeCastro is asking the court to:
- Find good cause under Rule 4(m) for Plaintiffs inability to complete traditional service on defendants;
- Grant a sixty (60) day extension of time to complete service of process on all defendants;
- Authorize alternative service on defendants Dale Hiller, Josh Abrams, and Kate Peter by: Email to their known email addresses; and Direct message through their YouTube channels and associated social media accounts;
- Order that service by these alternative means shall constitute valid and effective service under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 4 and Massachusetts Rule of Civil Procedure 4; and
- Grant such other relief as the Court deems just and proper.
DeCastro’s new filing did nothing to spur the crowd sourcing market, which remained in goose egg territory for a second straight day on Tuesday as no donations were observed, including to DeCastro’s three on-going campaigns.
Update: Perplexingly, Judge Leo T. Sorkin gave DeCastro both the extension and the ability to serve by e-mail.
Judge Sorkin wrote:
For the foregoing reasons, DeCastro’s request to serve defendants Hiller, Adams, and Peter by email, and his motion for an additional sixty days to effect service, are ALLOWED. Doc. No. 17. DeCastro’s deadline to serve is now January 2, 2026. DeCastro shall timely serve each named defendant by email with (1) a summons, (2) a copy of the amended complaint, and (3) a copy of this Order. DeCastro shall thereafter file proof of service with the Court showing that service was made in accordance with this Order. That proof of service shall demonstrate that the email address used for each defendant is the defendant’s valid personal email address.
This is a breaking news story.
