Jose “Chille” DeCastro filed a surprise second amended complaint in his lawsuit against Dave “Lackluster” Heller, Kate Peter and Josh “Accountability for All” Abrams on Thursday after a District Court Judge had essentially declared the suit dead without major work on the part of DeCastro.
Judge Allison D. Burroughs had previously ruled that DeCastro had not established that he had suffered $75,000.00 in damages to meet the minimum threshold of a lawsuit in federal district court.
She ruled:
The Amended Complaint and DeCastro’s subsequent pleadings fail to establish that the requisite amount is in controversy. The Amended Complaint states, without elaborating, that “the matter in controversy exceeds $75,000,” [Am. Compl. ¶ 1], and later alleges vaguely that DeCastro has suffered “[r]eputational harm and loss of professional credibility,” “[d]ecreased viewership and subscriber engagement,” “[l]oss of potential business opportunities and collaborations,” “[e]motional distress, anxiety, and [f]ear of [f]uture losses,” unspecified “[c]osts associated with attempting to mitigate the reputational damage,” and a loss of “402 subscribers” to his YouTube channel. [Id. ¶ 17]. It does not assign a dollar value to any of these harms or explain the basis for the valuation. The Amended Complaint also seeks damages of $1,000,000, [Am. Compl. at 9], but it does not explain how any of DeCastro’s claimed damages support that figure. Turning to DeCastro’s opposition, it states that “Plaintiff need only allege damages in good faith” at this stage, [ECF No. 34 at 6 (citing Abdel-Aleem, 665 F.3d at 41)], but AbdelAleem does not support that formulation. In that case, the First Circuit affirmed the dismissal of a complaint where there was “no substantiation for or valuation of any of the economic, emotional or physical damages” alleged in the complaint, Abdel-Aleem, 665 F.3d at 42, despite an “amendment adding ‘at least $1,000,000’ as the alleged amount in controversy,” id. at 43.
All told, DeCastro has failed to adequately support his claimed amount in controversy, and the Court must dismiss for lack of diversity jurisdiction. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(h)(3). That said, pursuant to its obligation, “within reasonable limits, to guard against the loss of pro se claims due to technical defects,” Dutil v. Murphy, 550 F.3d 154, 158 (1st Cir. 2008) (citing Boivin v. Black, 225 F.3d 36, 43 (1st Cir. 2000)), the Court will give DeCastro leave to amend within 21 days if he can set forth specific facts that support, with “sufficient particularity,” his “contention that there is more than $75,000 at stake.” Abdel-Aleem, 665 F.3d at 42.
Ending with:
For the foregoing reasons, Abrams and Hiller’s motion, [ECF No. 32], is GRANTED IN PART and DENIED IN PART. The action is DISMISSED for lack of jurisdiction with leave to file a second amended complaint within 21 days of this order if DeCastro can cure the jurisdictional deficiencies identified herein.
DeCastro, after his usual legal maneuvering of demanding more time to respond, apparently took her ruling as a change since he filed a 91-page amended complaint on Thursday, featuring his new story of how three YouTuber cost him his YouTube empire in 2022 based on statement they said in a livestream.
Before we get lost in his justification, this is what DeCastro is now seeking:
WHEREFORE, Plaintiff respectfully requests that the Court: A. Award compensatory damages for lost revenue, injury to reputation, and mental suffering, in amounts to be proven at trial, but not less than: against Hiller, $255,702; against Abrams, $255,702; and against Peter, $152,851; B. In the alternative, permit jurisdictional discovery as to Hiller as described in ¶ 19; C. Award costs under Fed. R. Civ. P. 54(d) and pre-judgment and post-judgment interest as allowed by law; and D. Grant such other relief as is just.
How he got there is a bit of a story in itself, dating back to 2022.
At that point, DeCastro was the new “hot” first amendment auditor on the market, with the decline of Glenn Cerio from that role. His voice was new and fairly fresh and he drew enormous interest and he literally exploded on the scene.
His chart on page 97 of the document shows this. He did 1,311,757 views in March of 2022 with estimated revenue of $8,196.84. His shine was new and his videos caught the attention of the community.
This led to a natural decline in April as his numbers were halved as many in the community quickly lost interest in the YouTuber.
He was picked up by Kate Peter as a new subject of interest and she was joined by Team Skeptic and John “Irish Demon” O’Dea in providing extensive coverage of the YouTuber, often featuring video reactions of his works on their livestreams.
By the end of May, Peter’s spur of the moment decision to attend the Memorial Day parade to confront DeCastro ultimately exposed him as a paper tiger to many in the community.
The situation at the parade where DeCastro stopped short and allowed Peter to walk into him as witnessed on the live video stream (now described as Peter stepping on his heels and Abrams masterfully editing the video to look like DeCastro was in the wrong in the new complaint), gave many the impression that he would do anything to have Peter arrested that day.
DeCastro’s subsequent attempts to get a protective order against Peter, with court aired on his own livestream, doubled down on these ideas as the self-proclaimed “constitutional law scholar” was brutalized in court, damaging his own reputation to the community.
By the June 10, 2022, livestream at the center of the current lawsuit, DeCastro’s own data shows that his viewership and “likes to dislike” ratio was already in freefall. DeCastro’s reputation within the community had already fallen into disfavor and over the summer of 2022, watch parties of “hate viewers” in private rooms on Discord server where DeCastro would not “get the views” became the norm.
Peter’s followers, the collective known as the “Masshole Mafia” supposedly tracked DeCastro “like a great white shark” over the summer. DeCastro fired back, with allegations that Peter’s followers attempted to get him backlisted from AirBnB, put Nutella on the handle of the door at an AirBnB, and stole his minivan.
DeCastro would later document all of this in a California Superior Court lawsuit against Peter, Team Skeptic, Daniel Clement and Michael “Blue Bacon” Pierattini filed in 2023, which claimed great reputational harm yet made no mention of the June 10 livestream.
The diminutive YouTuber’s “high knee pressure” incident where he was set to fight officer Chad Ghue of the Ironton, Ohio, police force but pulled out due to high blood pressure is now blamed on stress from the livestream. It is of note that DeCastro had also previously stated that he purposely skipped the fight since he suspected that the event was a setup for a police ambush.
DeCastro’s filing of his original lawsuit against Peter and Abrams for defamation and harassment hurt his reputation further, along with his pledge to sue the pair as many times as possible in as many ways as possible.
On top of this, in his effort to pivot his lawsuit against the pair into a copyright lawsuit, DeCastro began to copyright strike the channels who replayed his channel’s material. In at least one case, DeCastro used the information obtained from the filing of a YouTube counter notice to dox an individual, resulting in the temporary suspension of his Twitter account.
By the end of 2022 and the beginning of 2023, DeCastro’s channel viewership – as show by his own figures – were indeed in freefall.
This led to his statements of damages against each defendant:
Plaintiff values the injury caused by Hiller as follows: (a) lost revenue, 40% of $8,105, or $3,242; (b) mental suffering, 40% of $381,150, or $152,460; and (c) injury to reputation, which Plaintiff values in good faith at $100,000, for accusations of extortion, a threat to Hiller’s home, a threat to choke a man’s wife, assault on a woman, and “victims” with “proof,” made by one of the most established voices in Plaintiff’s community to an audience of more than 17,000. Total: $255,702. Based on those facts, the amount in controversy as to Hiller alone, exclusive of interest and costs, is an amount to be proven at trial, but not less than $250,000.
Plaintiff values the injury caused by Abrams as follows: (a) lost revenue, 40% of $8,105, or $3,242; (b) mental suffering, 40% of $381,150, or $152,460; and (c) injury to reputation, which Plaintiff values in good faith at $100,000, for originating the accusations, hosting the broadcast on his channel of about 238,000 subscribers, and accusing Plaintiff of beating a woman, extortion, theft, and fraud while knowing the blackmail story was false. Total: $255,702. Based on the facts existing when this action was filed, the amount in controversy as to Abrams alone, exclusive of interest and costs, is an amount to be proven at trial, but not less than $250,000. Abrams’s June 18, 2025 broadcast (¶ 58) is pleaded as additional harm and is not relied on to reach that amount.
Plaintiff values the injury caused by Peter’s June 10, 2022 statements as follows: (a) lost revenue, 20% of $8,105, or $1,621; (b) mental suffering, 20% of $381,150, or $76,230; and (c) injury to reputation, which Plaintiff values in good faith at $75,000, for accusing Plaintiff, before the same audience, of running a Ponzi scheme, taking investor money under false pretenses, and blackmail and extortion. Total: $152,851. Based on those facts, the amount in controversy as to Peter alone, exclusive of interest and costs, is an amount to be proven at trial, but not less than $150,000.
Again, these values were based on his starting point of March of 2023, not June of 2023 when the incident happened. His starting figure of $8,105 is in question, as his earnings in may were already down to $4,219.04 and he did not show that he was consistently making $8,105 before the incident.
All in all, it’s unclear if DeCastro’s new filing has met the threshold imposed on him by Judge Burroughs’ previous ruling. The defendants have yet to respond to DeCastro’s new filing as of press time and have 14 days to do so.
This is a breaking news story.
