Flanders sends emails claiming mugshot from assault arrest against teen boy is “copyrighted” property; two gullible corporations buy it and close down AFTAH sites

Media Release September 17, 2018
Contact: Peter LaBarbera, americansfortruth@gmail; 312-324-3787

A “Copyrighted” Mugshot? This mugshot photo of homosexual activist and registered sex offender Adam Flanders is from a November 24, 2006 arrest in Maine on assault charges against his underage boyfriend. Flanders–who later held a knife to the neck of the boy, then 16, to threaten the boy’s dad–is on the registered Sex Offenders list in Maine and California after pleading guilty in 2008 for  “Sexual Abuse of a Minor” for having sex with an underage boy. Flanders says he is the “sole copyright owner” of the photo–and he used that absurd claim to threaten AFTAH’s web service provider, FirstLight Fiber, which bowed to his demands. The photo above was evidently taken after Flanders was arrested on assault charges on November 24, 2006, according to his Criminal History Record as obtained from the Maine State Bureau of Identification. (See page 2 for Assault arrest apparently associated with this “11-25-06” mugshot.) NOTE: Flanders’ claim that the above mugshot photo exposes his Social Security number is also bogus. The numbers on the black card are NOT his SSN number; the information on his jail wristband is not legible. Perhaps that explains why this same photo remains on MassResistance’s site despite Flanders’ fanatical attempts over several years to have it and other material removed.

CHICAGO, IL—The entire website for Americans For Truth About Homosexuality (AFTAH.org) was shut down for more than two weeks beginning August 24 after a convicted homosexual sex offender, Adam Flanders, threatened a lawsuit against FirstLight Fiber, the Internet Service Provider (ISP) for AFTAH’s web host company–claiming his mugshot photo from a 2006 assault arrest against a minor boy was “copyrighted” material.

Flanders, a homosexual activist, is a registered sex offender in both Maine and California, where he now lives. He pleaded guilty in 2008 to “Sexual Abuse of a Minor” involving a boy aged 14 or 15. He also admitted to engaging in homosexual sex with his then-14-year-old boyfriend when he (Flanders) was 18–in a 2007 public letter exposing a Maine “gay youth” club. Later, Flanders sought to retract the letter and demanded that web sites take it down.

Flanders has a long history of making such litigious and mendacious threats containing absurd, exaggerated and sometimes nonsensical claims against pro-family leaders and websites that have exposed his past criminal offenses and other actions.

The mugshot photo in question can be viewed at upper right. AFTAH will not take it down because it is obviously in the public domain and not “owned” by Flanders. (Mugshots are routinely used in news stories and political ads.) Note also that after years of Flanders’ harassing threats and even a $1 million “defamation” lawsuit against pro-family hero Brian Camenker and his organization, MassResistance (see below), the identical Flanders 2006 mugshot photo printed by AFTAH remains posted throughout the MR site. Had Flanders’ accusations any legal merit, would Camenker leave them up, risking further ordeals?

Weighing legal options

Peter LaBarbera, president of Americans For Truth, and Jared Heath, CEO of Altha Technology, AFTAH’s web host company, are weighing their legal options against Flanders and FirstLight Fiber, the ISP that capitulated to his spurious email demand. Another ISP, HostGator, took down an AFTAH temporary site (see below); that site, “Americans For Truth Censored,” remains down.

“Flanders’ reckless actions and the ISPs that bowed to them have caused me and Jared Heath, the ex-Marine who runs AFTAH’s web host company, severe emotional and mental distress. They also have caused us significant financial harm and damage to our reputations,” said LaBarbera. “I know Flanders wants to erase his crimes from the web, especially his Sexual Abuse of a Minor conviction, but we will never give in to his intimidation tactics.”

Internet Bully: This vicious and venomous image was created by Maine “gay” activist Adam Flanders to bully Christian singer/songwriter Paulie Heath and intimidate the Heath family. Paulie’s husband, pro-family hero Mike Heath, was head of the Christian Civic League of Maine at the time. See below.

LaBarbera also called on Flanders to privately and publicly apologize to Paulie Heath, Jared’s mother, for the horrific and demented web-bullying graphic he created in 2005 cruelly distorting her visage (see below).

Flanders held knife at teen boyfriend’s throat

As this 2013 U.S. District Court document reveals (p.2), Flanders was arrested again in 2007 for another, more violent crime involving the same boy, now 16. According to U.S. Magistrate Judge Margaret Kravchuk’s decision, Flanders knifed the father of the teen boy lover after violating a court protection order to stay away from the boy. In that altercation, when the boy’s father came to rescue his son, Flanders held a knife at the boy’s throat, and knifed both the father and the boy in the altercation.

FirstLight took down the entire AFTAH website on August 24, 2018, three days after receiving an “abuse” complaint demanding “removal of copyrighted content pursuant to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).” AFTAH site has been up since September 10 using a separate IP address, but Flanders is continually working to take it down, and is again threatening legal action against LaBarbera and Heath.

FirstLight’s reckless takedown of an entire pro-family website containing thousands of articles–based on a single email containing outlandish assertions by a homosexual activist trying to erase his criminal history–demonstrates the growing crisis of anti-conservative censorship in Corporate America.

As AFTAH was reeling from Flanders’ harassment, it learned that Facebook had demanded that the AFTAH Facebook page take down a harmless post involving another homosexual activist, Phillip Picardi. The post, shown HERE and below, shows Picardi taking a selfie of him kissing another man as he defiantly gives the finger to critics upset at his defense of an article promoting anal sex in Teen Vogue, a magazine for young girls. Picardi is digital editor of Teen Vogue.

The following is a sample of Flanders’ previous outrageous and litigious stunts: