Jose “Chille” DeCastro ended 2022 with a reign of terror against his fellow YouTube creators, issuing copyright strikes and (temporarily) taking channels down due to the sheer volume of strikes.

Once the most talked about man in the First Amendment Auditing community, DeCastro issued hundreds of copyright strikes against anyone who used his content. While the strikes ultimately did not stick, he used his naming of John Doe defendants in his federal copyright lawsuit and statement of “I’m suing this person in a federal civil rights lawsuit” to fulfill YouTube’s need for proof of a lawsuit.

In the end, no one was unmasked as a “John Doe” defendant, and no one was added to his lawsuit before it was dismissed. However, word was out. Using DeCastro’s video content would result in a copyright strike and a headache most channels wouldn’t want to deal with. DeCastro became persona non grata to most creators, with just a handful of mainly non-U.S. based channels continuing to showcase his content.

One channel that showed no fear of DeCastro was the Welsh News Network and they have the scars to prove it.

[DISCLAIMER: ReallyCoolNews works in conjunction with the Welsh News Network. Owner/Reporter Jim Finch appears as a cast member on their nightly broadcasts. Yadda. Yadda. Yadda.]

The Welsh News Network started their coverage of DeCastro in late 2022 and pretty much centered on coverage of DeCastro throughout their existence. But they didn’t stop with reporting on DeCastro’s latest videos, they went further to become a real thorn in DeCastro’s side as the year progressed.

In the Laney Hudson case, when DeCastro glommed on to Laney Hudson’s family in an attempt to fundraise and make money off of their misfortune, WNN contacted the family directly and interviewed the family on air. Ultimately warning the family, along with the help of Tina Slay, that DeCastro did not have their best interest at heart.

While the family ultimately rejected the advice provided by WNN, in the end their dramatic split with DeCastro echoed all of the points that Slay and WNN had warned them about. DeCastro had shown his true colors: he wasn’t there to help them; he was there to line his pockets and earn fame off of their misfortune.

DeCastro would issue hundreds of copyright strikes against WNN in the year 2023. Without devoting a lot of on-screen time to them, behind the scenes DeCastro, according to former associate Collin “Project Constitution” Campbell, began to fear a UK based lawsuit that WNN had teased in early spring of 2023 and began to monitor the travel plans of those on the channel in order to avoid service of a possible lawsuit.

Surprisingly, while DeCastro was able to get WNN temporarily suspended from YouTube in mid-year through the sheer volume of copyright strikes against them and may have had a hand in their late year demonetization, he never went a step further and directly added them to his federal or California based lawsuits.

DeCastro had on-going issues with YouTube of his own to deal with. In late winter, his Delete Lawz Clips channel was removed by YouTube as Google could not verify the identity of the channel owner. Again, former associate Collin “Project Constitution” Campbell would dish on this as DeCastro had used the name of “Delete LawzClips” of the channel owner, a “person” who didn’t exist to be confirmed by AdSense.

Hilarity ensued as DeCastro leaked his own conversation with a YouTube chatbot, who offered little help to the YouTuber and in the end, Campbell was tasked with relaunching DeCastro’s backup channel as Delete Lawz Clips Reloaded.

Campbell’s personality and editing style wasn’t for everyone. He butted heads with DeCastro on the visual style and plans for growth for the channel he was responsible for. He became known for his fast cuts and style that seemed perfect for YouTube shorts, where DeCastro’s channel experienced great success.

The Campbell produced shorts helped propel DeCastro’s main channel attract a staggering amount of new subscribers. While there were always rumors that DeCastro was buying subscribers, part of the 300,000 new subscribers came from Campbell’s work attracting viewers with dynamic shorts.

Behind the scenes, Campbell would later reveal that he pressed DeCastro to get back into TikTok and focus his “indestructible” Trifold sales there. In 2023, TikTok became a sort of replacement for late night televised infomercials, with an audience that would be receptive to products offering the ability to get out of traffic tickets.

Even though they would eventually suffer the loss of their main TikTok channel, Campbell would continue to urge DeCastro to use TikTok as a source of revenue as the viewers here were receptive to his product lines.

In early summer, DeCastro had an idea to expand his product line. While a massive revision of his $30 “indestructible” trifold had proved successful, he also had a huge setback as YouTube channel GunnarTV, with the help of WNN, did an exposé on his trifold. Undaunted by DeCastro’s lawsuit threats, GunnarTV proved that DeCastro’s product was essentially useless in a traffic stop.

DeCastro would then be inspired to produce a smaller version of the trifold, a product that could fit in a pocket. Based on DeCastro’s perpetual confusion between the fifth amendment, the first amendment and a person’s Miranda rights, DeCastro produced the 5A Cop Card – the ultimate “get out of ticket” free product.

In essence, it was a credit card sized product priced at $30 that came in a pair of cards. There was a card for the driver of the car during a traffic stop and a card for the passenger in the car. Both essentially told the person holding the card not to cooperate with police or give their IDs to police.

When marketing the card, DeCastro promised that the police would lose their qualified immunity and be able to be sued if the police continued to question the driver or passengers of the card after invoking their Fifth Amendment right to remain silent.

The new product, while filled with unproven claims, would have worked well on TikTok. A “Get out of Ticket Free” card again, was the type of product that could get a sale from a TikTok viewer at the $30 price point if presented with a slick video short and a quick pitch by DeCastro. But DeCastro was reluctant to put his fortune in the hands of TikTok after building up and losing multiple accounts over the years.

DeCastro had 5000 of the cards made up, then took over shipping the cards himself and… he literally couldn’t give the cards away at the $30 price point. By late fall of 2023, he was literally giving the cards away for free, or offering to send a real card in exchange for a digital sale of the card.

Eventually he found a small amount of success by setting the price of the cards under $10 in an attempt to clear out inventory, claiming to sell the cards “at cost” and admitting that he’d make a small profit from the $5 shipping he charged for each card.

During 2023, DeCastro promised his fans that one day he would change the system by running for and winning the governorship of a major state. In the position of governor, he promised that he would abolish the police force of the state, turn over handling of body and dash cam footage to a third-party organization, then make sure that all video from his “rights protectors” would be always available to the public.

DeCastro also pitched the idea of a civil war on multiple occasions. He predicted that a great civil war was coming but promised his fans that he wouldn’t fight in the war. He would sit the war out in another country and only come back to lead the survivors once the war had finished. The preservation of his great leadership skills was most important as he could return to lead the country out of darkness with his proven plans.

Part of his vision for the country, at least according to many of his rants, would be to reduce the role of women to child bearers. He was concerned that the United States population growth could not keep up with the rest of the world, so he proposed that it was the duty of every woman to have as many children as possible.

He also made it clear that as women were “inferior” to men physically, he would ban them from serving in the military, serving as firefighters and without question, serving in the police force. Women, he claimed, could not hold “dominion” over men and he would never give “dominion” to a woman.

DeCastro’s family life suffered as a result of his actions in 2023. Leaked e-mails revealed a huge split in his family life as his sister, who resided in Las Vegas, refused to pay for his participation in a family reunion in Colombia.

His “cousins” CiCi and Matt, who answered his mail and served his lawsuits respectively, were revealed to be fictional. This may prove to be interesting as Matt was mentioned as serving Blue Bacon in DeCastro’s California Superior Court lawsuit against Bacon, Kate Peter, Team Skeptic and Daniel Clement.

A very real DeCastro cousin died in February from ingesting cocaine mixed with Fentanyl, leaving the 25-year old’s five children without a mother. DeCastro turned his trip to her funeral into an encounter with Apple Valley, California, police that resulted in a traffic citation that he’d eventually beat. His one legal victory of the year.

DeCastro’s merchandise sales also plagued him during the year. Around the time of the previously discussed split with former employee Collin “Project Constitution” Campbell, he had problems with the company that printed and shipped his 5A Cop Card and Trifold products. This was after weeks of DeCastro proclaiming on the air that he had never missed a shipment and there were never any problems with orders of his products.

The YouTuber would eventually take over the shipping of both products. Leaked e-mails from DeCastro’s personal e-mail revealed that there were tons of problems with orders and a growing number of claims of improperly used credit cards after placing an order from DeCastro’s website.

Initially blaming the problems on the T-Spring store “stolen” by Campbell (as the T-Spring shop was legally owned by Campbell), he would insist that all the problems were with Campbell’s store. He later assured fans that he never saw credit card information as all the orders placed on his DeleteLawz.com site were handled by Bank of America.

Late in 2023, DeCastro announced that he would be selling Delete Lawz branded hoodies. While excited at first, DeCastro eventually began to grumble about selling the product. He indicated that when you sell and ship hoodies, you become known more for the products that you sell than the message you try to convey to the public.

Observers noted that DeCastro may not have learned from his previous T-shirt debacle earlier in the year. DeCastro had retrieved a large number of “Delete Lawz” branded T-Shirts from a storage unit and decided to have a blow out on-air sale that wouldn’t end until he was out of shirts. The sale ended quickly as DeCastro lost patience with his lack of sales and brought the live stream to a close. The fate of the T-shirts is unknown at press time.

On New Year’s Eve, DeCastro announced that he was moving from the former pot dispensary/studio he had lived in for most of the year. He seemed bittersweet about moving and claimed that he had “no choice” in the move, but had found a new space to live in.

He took time to pause and reflect on his situation, with the change of scenery possibly opening up a new chapter in his life.

It’s time to tell us what you think. Is Jose “Chille” DeCastro a winner or a loser of 2023? It’s time to share your thoughts. Please tell us in the comments below or on our Discord server (https://discord.gg/h7VvqKYyHA).