Jose “Chille” DeCastro failed to appear at Thursday’s scheduled status conference for his lawsuit against Michael “Blue Bacon” Pierattini, Kate Peter, Daniel Clement and Team Skeptic, prompting observers to wonder if he’s abandoned the lawsuit entirely.
DeCastro filed suit in 2023 against the foursome, in essentially a revisit of his 2022 federal lawsuit against Kate Peter and Josh Abrams (before he changed it to a federal copyright lawsuit against the pair and YouTube/Google).
The lawsuit claimed that Peter ran an actual “mafia” group that conspired to terrorize DeCastro over the course of the summer of 2022 into 2023. In the suit DeCastro alleges the group did everything from smearing Nutella on the front door of an Airbnb he was staying at to stealing his minivan in 2022.
DeCastro has stated on multiple occasions that he doesn’t care about the outcome of the lawsuit. Instead, as a pro se plaintiff, he intended to force the defendants to get attorneys and sue them into financial oblivion by filing his lawsuit in as many venues as possible.
This strategy worked for a time, until DeCastro messed up his service to both Daniel Clement and Team Skeptic, and would have messed up his service to Pierattini, except for Pierattini’s strange decision to become a defendant in the case for “what the hell” reasons.
DeCastro got a clerk to declare Kate Peter was in default in the case as she simply stopped responding to the summons in the case. He did not receive a default judgment against her, as that part of the case has not come yet. He’ll eventually have to prove his charges to receive a win.
Again, things were going well for DeCastro until Pierattini lawyered up and DeCastro refused to work with the defense or the court in any real way, shape or form. DeCastro has refused to be deposed, failed to provide even basic answers to discovery requests, and even had to hire his own lawyer after Pierattini’s lawyer was successful in having sanctions awarded for DeCastro’s actions.
Most recently, DeCastro’s lawsuit barely survived a motion for summary judgment and DeCastro simply did not reply to the follow up filings. Those filings were dated October 1, 2024, and addressed the final sticking points to having the case against Pierattini dismissed.
DeCastro, nor his attorney of record, Steven T. Gebelin, attended Thursday’s status update hearing nor provided any correspondence on record as to why they wouldn’t be at the hearing. It was rescheduled for January 23, 2025, and will be held the same day as a previously scheduled sanctions hearing.
Gebelin, the attorney of record for DeCastro, has also yet to file anything with the court to indicate that he has withdrawn from representing DeCastro. He would need to do so for DeCastro to return to pro se status.
The case is still set to go to a jury trial on February 24, 2025.
