The Lane Myers experience returned to Tucson, Arizona, as he made an appearance at a planned hearing in the case of Judge Alexander Ball vs. the YouTuber known as Mark “The Reluctant Prophet” Kelly.
Myers was in a mood as he interrupted a trip to the Grand Canyon to return to Tucson, where he was expected to testify in the case.
Ever flamboyant, Myers was dressed in an outfit consisting of a red, white and blue bow tie and a t-shirt featuring Judge Ball’s face and was holding a sign claiming that Judge Ball kidnapped him.
The lawsuit itself was over an incident earlier in the month where Myers was held in contempt of court for calling Ball a “liar” during a hearing unrelated to Kelly.
Myers was taken into custody, Ball recused himself from handling the contempt case. Another judge was assigned and set a hearing for the next day. Myers was in custody for what he says was 31 hours before being released and the contempt charge was dropped.
Kelly reacted to the “kidnapping” of Myers by putting up attack videos about the Judge on YouTube. Once he saw them, the Judge reacted by filing a defamation lawsuit against Kelly to seek the removal of the videos.
Coverage of the pending lawsuit has been covered everywhere else, with most legal scholars thinking the Judge needed thicker skin and that the case was stupid. Myers reveled in the chaos, as it’s one more way to dominate the Tucson nut butlery that is known as their lowest level courts.
Myers presented his sign and screamed, “Judge Bell kidnapped me!” at every person he saw, in an attempt to get “everybody talking” about his supposed kidnapping.
Upon entering the court building, Myers walked past new signage that would come into play later. Apparently, like almost all other court buildings in the United States, there is a standing order from the Judge who runs the building that recording is prohibited in the building without advance permission.
This is a rule that other auditors have fought and lost multiple times, and essentially bans filming from the building. It’s a standard rule, it’s been litigated to death, and the assembled handful of auditors would refuse to abide by it later in the day, resulting in police being called.
For now, Myers walked around blissfully spreading chaos in his wake until he reached the actual courtroom for the trial. Ball was meeting with Kelly outside of the courtroom, which startled Myers.
It turned out that Ball had put in a motion to dismiss the case on Friday, December 20, and there would be no hearing today other than to dismiss the case. Which happened to Myers’ disappointment.
Myers blatantly video streamed the last few minutes of the hearing, against the Court order prohibiting filming.
Once the parties exited the courtroom, Myers followed Judge Ball to his office, “interviewing him” as they walked.
While Myers appeared calm during the time the pair were together, he told the Judge that he was lying when the Judge revealed that he had no other choice but to file a lawsuit over Kelly’s video as he and his family were receiving death threats from people who had seen the video.
Ball said he reported some of the threats to the FBI, Myers said he “was friends with the FBI” and that he’d check to see that was true. Myers would later admit that he didn’t really know anyone in the FBI but declared Ball a liar anyway.
Myers relentlessly berated Ball over procedures and the two shook hands as Ball entered a restricted area, and Myers was able to go about spreading chaos for the rest of the video.
The video ended with the above-mentioned great debate between Myers and his fellow YouTubers vs. building security at one of the Courthouses. With no reported arrests made.
