On October 19, businessman Michael Arnstein, 41, of Kailua, Hawaii, was sentenced to 9 months in prison for conspiring to forge a federal judge’s signature in connection with a scheme to get websites containing negative reviews of his jewelry company removed from Google search results.
Arnstein is the owner of a jewelry company that was founded by his grandfather Walter Arnstein in 1939. The company is located in Manhattan with a satellite office in Sri Lanka. It specializes in sapphires and sapphire jewelry.
The forgery scheme
According to court records, Arnstein’s company hired an Indian IT company called Transpacific Software to develop its e-commerce website in March 2004. Arnstein had a falling-out with the owner of Transpacific and ended their business relationship in January 2011. Around six months later, Arnstein’s company filed a defamation lawsuit against Transpacific in Manhattan federal court. The complaint included allegations of cybersquatting, defamation, and tortious interference among other things.
When Transpacific failed to appear in court, the presiding judge (U.S. District Judge Alison Nathan) entered a default judgement on behalf of Arnstein’s company and ordered Transpacific to take down 54 URLs that allegedly contained defamatory information about Arnstein’s company.
The forgery scheme started in early 2014 when Arnstein instructed one of his employees to alter Judge Nathan’s court order from the defamation case in Photoshop to add new URLs containing negative reviews of his business. Arnstein then emailed a copy of the counterfeit court order to Google along with a request for it to de-index the URLs.
At the time, Google had a policy of voluntarily removing content pursuant to a court order directed at a third party.
Arnstein submitted at least ten counterfeit court orders to Google over a three-year period. By his own admission, it worked about 25% of the time.
The guilty plea
Arnstein pled guilty to one count of conspiracy to forge a judge’s signature in September 2017. He also admitted to his role in the conspiracy, and that he knew what he was doing was wrong.
When the guilty plea was announced, the Manhattan U.S. Attorney thanked Google for its help with the investigation. Read an earlier post about Arnstein’s complicated relationship with Google here.
The U.S. Attorney also pointed out that Arnstein would be sentenced in the same court that he impersonated.
The sentencing hearing
During the sentencing hearing, U.S. District Judge Andrew Carter read two separate emails that Arnstein sent to third parties where he bragged about his conduct and complained about how much money he had spent on lawyers:
“[N]o bullshit: if I could do it all over again I would have found another court order injunction for removal of links (probably something that can be found online pretty easily) made changes in photoshop to show the links that I wanted removed and then sent to ‘removals@google.com’ as a pdf – showing the court order docket number, the judges [sic] signature – but with the new links put in. google isn’t checking this stuff; that’s the bottom line b/c I spent $30,000 fuckin thousand dollars and nearly 2 fuckin years to do what legit could have been done for about 6 hours of searching and photoshop by a guy for $200., all in ONE DAY… .”
“I think you should take legal advice with a grain of salt. I spent 100k on lawyers to get a court order injunction to have things removed from Google and Youtube, only to photoshop the documents for future use when new things ‘popped up’ and google legal never double checked my docs for validity…I could have saved 100k and 2 years of waiting/damage if I just used photoshop and a few hours of creative editing…Lawyers are often worse than the criminals.”
Steven Brounstein, Arnstein’s defense attorney, talked about his client’s attempts to use legal means to stop Transpacific’s owner from posting defamatory information about his business online. He said that Arnstein’s business has already suffered greatly and will suffer more if Arnstein is sent to prison. Brounstein noted that the business supports 26 employees. His final statement was that Arnstein is a decent man and he deserves a second chance.
“Mr. Arnstein is a very privileged individual. He’s a successful businessman. He has a $1.5 million house in Hawaii. He comfortably supports his wife and three children. He did not have to commit this crime.”
-Assistant U.S. Attorney Daniel Noble
Assistant U.S. Attorney Daniel Noble pointed out that Arnstein’s conduct was not an isolated incident, and that it occurred over a 3-year period. He called it a crime of opportunity and argued that a jail sentence is necessary to deter others from trying to do the same thing.
Arnstein addresses the court
When Arnstein addressed the court, he expressed regret and accepted responsibility for his actions. He explained that he had become cynical and bitter while trying to defend his family’s name.
Arnstein said that his grandfather had a sign in his office that said “integrity is doing the right thing when no one is looking”, and that he had failed to live up to that message. He said that he has hung the sign on the wall above his desk as a reminder to stay the course. Arnstein asked Judge Carter to allow him to continue to serve the people who depend on him.
Arnstein is sentenced to 9 months in prison
After a brief recess, Judge Carter announced that he was not going to depart from the sentencing guidelines. He cited the importance of promoting respect for the law and public faith in the legitimacy of court orders. Judge Carter acknowledged that Arnstein had led an otherwise exemplary life.
In addition to 9 months in custody, the sentence also includes 5 months of home detention, 3 years of supervised release, 200 hours of community service, and a fine of $20,000.
Arnstein will begin serving his sentence on January 17, 2019.