CC’ing AxaMonitor Raises Peters’ Stakes in Lawsuit Against Former Axanar Director

With his lawsuit stalled, and his lawyer refusing to respondto correspondence from a defense lawyer, Axanar producer Alec Peters flew into a rage April 29, 2019, when Robert Meyer Burnett’s attorney took an unusual tack to push for a settlement in the case.

California attorney Torin Dorros wrote Peters’ Georgia lawyer H. Michael Deaver a third time seeking settlement negotiations. This time, however, he’s officially included AxaMonitor and Fan Film Factor blogger/Axanar surrogate Jonathan Lane as addressees:

I recognize copying some of the other parties copied on this email is unusual, however … given Mr. Peters has seemingly decided to include or pull in these other parties into the settlement process, if such will assist in moving the ‘settlement ball’ forward all the better.¹⁾

Dorros’ letter set off a flurry of emails between the parties involved. Dorros said this was his third effort to resolve the legal dispute; his letter was prompted by an April 27 email from Peters to his disaffected former PR director, Mike Bawden, raising “serious concerns” about the “poorly drafted settlement” proposal Peters sent to former Axanar director Burnett with the supposed imprimatur of Bawden.

FFF blogger Lane played some role that led to the angry email in which Peters claimed his settlement offer resulted from Bawden’s intercession: “I gave you [Bawden] the settlement offer you asked for. Exactly. You either failed to read it, or you are lying to Jonathan.”

In another email on April 29, Bawden critciicized “Alec’s intentional (and persistent) misrepresentation of his settlement offer to Rob as something that he and I negotiated is very misleading. As I have said on dozens of occasions to both Alec and Jonathan Lane … I made it crystal clear that I could not represent or negotiate on Rob’s behalf.”

Despite his attorney wife’s advice to leave well enough alone, Lane instead interceded on Peters’ behalf by responding to Dorros’ letter and trying to facilitate an agreement about how Burnett might hand over Axanar's digital assets Peters says he’s owed. Lane said:

To this end, I’ve also been in contact with Mr. Bawden, who like me, had been ‘caught in the middle’ of this conflict without being able to keep it from exploding into a full-on lawsuit.²⁾

Dorros trying to involve AxaMonitor in this effort, however, did nothing but outrage Peters, who insisted continuing to do so would only further hurt Burnett’s defense.

Peters criticized Bawden and Burnett for “involving my stalker [AxaMonitor] on their email thread,” calling it “unethical [and] unprofessional,” opening both up to legal liability:

This is just one more amateur attempt to defame me. … There will be no settlement if this is part of your legal strategy. Carlos … now has posts constantly. The damages to my reputation need to be compensated.³⁾

As a result of what Peters called “involving [AxaMonitor editor] Carlos Pedraza in these negotiations,” Peters now insists he will accept “nothing short of the return of all Axanar Productions equipment,” which he earlier had been willing to concede. He said:

One more email that [AxaMonitor editor] Carlos is copied on and all settlement talks are off.⁴⁾

Of course, Peters neglected to mention that negotiation hadn’t even begun since his lawyer has resisted several efforts by Burnett’s attorney to communicate:

I am writing this correspondence to you as a last means of getting the parties to resolution prior to other actions that will be necessitated simply as a result of the inability for the parties to effectively communicate to allow for any meaningful settlement prospects.⁵⁾

Despite Peters’ repeated claim that he will undoubtedly win his case against Burnett, his failure to file the required basic paperwork in court appeared only to stall his litigation.

How is the truth defamatory? Despite his claim that AxaMonitor publishing his emails constitutes defamation, that can only be true if the emails are phony and we published them knowing so.

Peters says he isn’t defaming Burnett: “I have zero concern about calling Rob a thief. It is a fact. Can’t wait for that to start showing up in the Google results for people searching for info on Rob. I am sick of this bullshit, and sick of you [Bawden] enabling Rob. His info dump to Carlos shows what a child he is.”

Why won’t his lawyer respond? Despite repeated attempts to negotiate, Peters’ attorney continues to avoid replying to defense counsel’s correspondence.

What’s Peters’ real priority? If what he really wants are the digital assets he says he needs to produce the Axanar short films, why is Peters doing everything he can to impede his own legal action?

Personal animosity toward Burnett appears to be fueling Peters’ actions. In his email Peters said:

I have an iron clad case. … I am happy to spend whatever to teach Rob a lesson. All you non-lawyers have your collective heads up your butts if you think Rob has any chance in court.“