As predicted, the rise of the Lane Myers fundraising empire ended, at least briefly, on Friday as Myers effectively “went dark” on social media after a disastrous hearing to change his release conditions reminded the YouTuber that everything he says and does while in jail can and will be used against him.
For the past week Myers had been holding daily livestreams from jail that aired on Josh Gray’s “This is a Public Service” YouTube channel. While Myers objects to the use of the term “friend” to describe Gray, preferring versions of “media outlet” to describe Gray’s work and not the person, Gray is as close to a friend as Myers has had since his incarceration.
Myers is in jail because he refused to stop contacting a person who has a no contact order against him. She sought it after he blamed her for the firing of his wife from her job last year and started to publicly showcase her contact information for his followers to see.
Defenders of Myers claim that Myers is a journalist, and his continued contact of the victim is part of his job. He contends that posting her information to his 15,000 YouTube followers is not harassment as it’s simply putting “public information” out there and she has no real rights against unwanted public contact as she’s a public employee.
Myers had a very frustrating week as he was allowed to stream from jail due to the jail’s lack of a livestreaming policy. While the jail prohibits three-way calling, where Myers could be connected to multiple people via telephone, it did not specifically state that he could not livestream to his dozens of followers on Gray’s channel.
Prosecutors were alerted to his livestreams and were reviewing all of his communications for a hearing to be held on Tuesday to see if his communications privileges would be restricted following Myers picking up more charges based off of his livestreams.
Since Friday, Myers has gone dark on social media. Gray posted a single item on his “This is a Public Service” channel asking Myers’ supporters to stop leaving him voice mails while in jail. The message also calls upon his fans to stop contacting his victim.
While Myers has not carried out his previous threat to fire his attorney, accept a plea deal for his release and take down his YouTube channel, the threats still linger as Myers enters a new phase of his incarceration.
As expected, without new communications from Myers, his fundraising ability has effectively ended. Myers took in $30.00 in new donations for Saturday, then blanked on Sunday.
Christopher “Denver Metro Audits” Cordova took Saturday with a $65.00 take while SeanPaul “Long Island Audit” Reyes took Sunday with a $200.00 take. No other donations were observed for either day.
We’ve seen a decline like this before, as Craig Hendry apparently lost his ability to communicate with his followers in early January. Hendry had been successfully directed his fans to come to hearings on his behalf and, more importantly, fundraise through recorded calls from jail that were released to his YouTube channel.
Hendry is still in second place for the year in overall tally even though he hasn’t had a donation since January, from donations that came in after his last jail address. But even with four times the following Myers has, Hendry has not been able to sustain interest in his cause since communications have been cut off.
We fully expect Myers’ fundraising decline to continue if his ability to communicate with his followers is not restored on Tuesday.
Like Hendry, who is currently jailed for harassment and stalking charges against public servants in Indiana, Myers simply does not have support in place to help him with basics – commissary, calls, lawyer’s fees. Let alone bigger picture items that don’t go away in jail – house payment, grocery for his dog and wife, car payments, etc.
Without this in place, it is paramount to his survival that he’s able to fundraise off his supporters. He can’t do this if he can’t communicate with them, and Tuesday’s hearing will surely determine where the Lane Myers movement goes until his trial concludes.
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