Why Shawn Calls Virtual Court a Fraud — Rule 8.2, the Cast of Characters, and the $50,000 Invoice

Open courtrooms forced settlement and kept everyone honest in public view — Shawn's theory on what Zoom court took away. Plus the ethics rule that stops lawyers from naming names, the fictional cast led by Robert Baratheon that lets Shawn teach the patterns anyway, and auditing a guardian ad litem's bills for wire fraud clues. Education, not legal advice — and the characters are fiction.

Meg hosts. Criminal trial attorney Shawn Lee teaches his framework for organizing records and understanding possible fraud questions — his theory to evaluate, presented as general legal education, not legal advice. The cast of characters is fiction.

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General legal education — not legal advice.

Transcript

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SPEAKER_02 0:09

Hey, welcome to the stand with Meg Ship. I'm here with Sean Lee for the Sean Lee Report. We're excited to have you today, Sean, and welcome to this wonderful thing up here. And he's got a plethora of things that he wants to show you guys. And I'm really excited because he's got some fun stuff. All right, what do you have for us today, Sean?

SPEAKER_00 0:26

Well, Meg, I'm really excited about this. You and I are going to delve into white collar crime.

SPEAKER_02 0:34

White collar crime. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 0:36

I have a white collar on. And the reason I'm I have a white collar on is we're going to talk about wire fraud, conspiracy to commit wire fraud. So look, we have our file. We're looking into wire fraud.

SPEAKER_02 0:50

So every time he meets with me, he gives me this, and or he gave it to me, and then he constantly gives me more and more stuff. So it's it's our fraud file. Isn't it lovely? It's like reused.

SPEAKER_00 1:02

Yes. Yes. No, this is real. We want to see some people held accountable and we want to see institutional change. Amen. So I'm going to introduce you to our cast of characters. I am ethically prohibited under Rule 8.2 from commenting on individuals. I may suspect that they are committing crimes. I may have a sincere belief that they are committing crimes. But if I make allegations like that about a sitting judge, a lawyer, or a guardian ad lightum, they can get me in trouble for Rule 8.2. So I'm going to introduce you to our cast of characters.

SPEAKER_02 1:45

Well, we do he don't we don't want him to get lose his bar license. So we're doing this fun thing. And I think this would be fun too when people ever even talk about it to do to use these actors.

SPEAKER_00 1:55

You can draw what conclusions you want from these actors. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 1:59

So you want me to hold it up while you say it? Sure. Well, sure. That we can talk about it.

SPEAKER_00 2:03

Let's start with the divorce.

SPEAKER_02 2:05

Here, I'll be her. So who do we have?

SPEAKER_00 2:07

We have the divorce of Robert Baratheon and Cersei Baratheon.

SPEAKER_02 2:13

So this is the woman of the divorce, and that's the man.

SPEAKER_00 2:16

So here's the thing, Meg. My my line is that there's there's less criminals in criminal law than in family law. Okay. Let me explain that rationale. In criminal law, it is the state or the government versus John Doe. One person is alleged to have committed a crime. And on the other side of that is prosecutors and cops. So some of those people who are charged are innocent, which means 50% or less of the people in criminal law are criminals. Well, this is family law. Robert Baratheon is guilty of a whole host of crimes. He human trafficked his friends uh while they were married. Liana Stark. Liana Stark was in love with Rhaegar Targaryen.

SPEAKER_02 3:04

What show is this from?

SPEAKER_00 3:06

Game of Thrones.

SPEAKER_02 3:07

Oh, I knew that. Sorry. I thought that's okay. Yeah. I love Game of Thrones.

SPEAKER_00 3:12

The backstory here, I've read the books. The backstory, Robert Baratheon was betrothed to Liana Stark, but Lianna Stark loved Rhaegar Targaryen, had his love baby. Rather than accept this, Robert Baratheon engaged in sedition, treason, he overthrew the royal government, and then he murdered Rhaegar Targaryen with a hammer. I forgot about that. Once he was married, Robert Baratheon was a serial cheater, and he even dispatched assassins to take out a young Daenerys Targaryen. Terrible guy. Terrible guy.

SPEAKER_02 3:49

And this was his wife?

SPEAKER_00 3:51

So Cersei Baratheon, I think a lot of people are familiar with Circe. It's very clear that there is nothing Cersei Baratheon will not do. She will kill anyone, she will lie to anyone, she will sleep with anyone. There is nothing in the world that Cersei Baratheon will not do. And these two need a divorce.

SPEAKER_02 4:13

So they're filing for divorce. How many kids do they have? Do they have like three kids or two boys or something? I can't remember.

SPEAKER_00 4:18

Three children and paternity is something of a question.

SPEAKER_02 4:21

That's right. I remember that.

SPEAKER_00 4:23

There are allegations.

SPEAKER_02 4:24

Oh, I have to rewatch this now.

SPEAKER_00 4:25

Yeah, there are allegations that the children are not robberts. That's right.

SPEAKER_02 4:30

Okay, so these two are the people getting divorced. So what happens? So who's hiring an attorney first?

SPEAKER_00 4:35

So both these people need a divorce. Now let me walk you through something, okay? Rule 1.5 in the the ethical rules of Kansas state that a lawyer's fee shall be reasonable. Now these two got a lot of problems.

SPEAKER_02 4:50

A lawyer's fee shall be reasonable.

SPEAKER_00 4:53

Exactly. They got a lot of problems. They need a divorce. Howard have a reasonable fee.

SPEAKER_02 4:59

Right.

SPEAKER_00 5:01

Well, let me show you who they have hired. I'll do the mom lawyer. Okay. So Sear C. Baratheon has hired Billy Flynn out of Chicago. Chicago. Billy Flynn has is a high-profile lawyer. He specializes in women who have uh been alleged to have murdered their husbands. And what he does is he goes into courts and and he portrays them as good, honest people who would certainly never murder their husbands in cold blood. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 5:33

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. What's that song? No, no, no.

SPEAKER_00 5:37

That's mom's lawyer. Now, dad has hired Saul Goodman. From Breaking Bat. Breaking Bat. So Saul Goodman, he he's a uh creative lawyer, not afraid to hire people to throw themselves in front of cars for uh personal injury cases. Uh Robert Brathean has hired him to make allegations about Cersei. Both of them are making allegations about each other. Robert Brathean is alleging that Cersei is this terrible person. Cersei has hired Billy Flynn to defend her honor. And so the court has appointed.

SPEAKER_02 6:15

So wait a second. Why do they appoint this? So what's happening? Why do they appoint somebody else?

SPEAKER_00 6:21

So they have they both have pending motions. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 6:24

So they both have their attorneys. They're with their attorneys.

SPEAKER_00 6:27

Yep.

SPEAKER_02 6:27

And then what happens? Why did all of a sudden someone else come on the case?

SPEAKER_00 6:31

So Robert Baratheon and Saul Goodman got together and they're like, well, she's crazy. And Saul Goodman says, Well, you need a psychological evaluation.

SPEAKER_02 6:40

And then she says he's crazy.

SPEAKER_00 6:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 6:42

Or abusive.

SPEAKER_00 6:43

Yep. Okay. And so they say they each are advised by their lawyers. Now, look, Cersei and Robert, they just need a divorce. They're busy. They're running their lives. And they are pretty bad people. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 6:58

So in comes the third person.

SPEAKER_00 7:00

It's these lawyers who are running it. These lawyers, well, you they they get together. They send each other a raven and they say, you know who'd be the perfect doctor for this case?

SPEAKER_02 7:11

Because they talk on the phone all the time.

SPEAKER_00 7:12

Yeah. They talk on the phone. They hang out. They got other cases. They say, you know who would be the perfect doctor for this case? Bum, bum, bum! Dr. Hannibal Lecter. I don't know this long for that. Dr. Lecter is an esteemed physician. He's well-known amongst the family law bar. Excellent credentials. Absolutely. Brilliant physician. I mean, come on. He has some personal, personal shortcomings. Um, and they're buddies.

SPEAKER_02 7:40

They're all buddies.

SPEAKER_00 7:41

He's these lawyers have worked with Dr. Lecter in the past. And in fact, they they have referral fee agreements. Now.

SPEAKER_02 7:49

Is that allowed referral fee with lawyers within the if it's in the court system?

SPEAKER_00 7:54

So lawyers pay referral fees all the time. Doctors pay referral fees. Okay. All the time. And it could be construed as kickbacks.

SPEAKER_02 8:03

Okay. Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 8:05

Interwhite collar crime.

SPEAKER_02 8:06

Right collar crap.

SPEAKER_00 8:08

Okay. Dr. Lecter, he looks into these two individuals, Robert Baratheon and Cersei Baratheon, and he decides: you know what? The children need a teleguardian ad lightum.

SPEAKER_02 8:21

Oh, so now we have another court actor.

SPEAKER_00 8:23

Yep. Well, Saul Goodman and Billy Flynn, they've worked with this Telegardian ad lightum before. Name unknown. But they work remotely. This is them over a forest, feet up, looking at a computer. Now, this telegardian ad lightum is never actually going to meet the kids or form a relationship with them. This teleguardian adlightum is just going to read reports from everybody else and then give an opinion to the judge. And again, all of them know each other from other cases, work together all the time. Sometimes they even suppress allegations of misconduct against each other.

SPEAKER_02 9:09

So technically, these guys, you are, they already know the fate of your divorce by who you hire, these two guys.

SPEAKER_00 9:16

This is the person right here who can have the most impact on your divorce, the tele guardian at lightum.

SPEAKER_02 9:24

Or just a regular guardian lightem, because there's a lot of not tele that they don't even meet the kids or talk to the parents. Yes. So they're not technically a tele, but they still don't meet the parents.

SPEAKER_00 9:32

They f they e-file, they video, they call.

SPEAKER_02 9:36

Okay, so that is a tele, but they don't they text. Okay, so that's the good thing. They text, they email, zoom meetings.

SPEAKER_00 9:42

They e-file zoom meetings. And what are text, digital signatures, emails? Wires. All wires.

SPEAKER_02 9:49

So that so technically that's a telly, that's a tele G A L.

SPEAKER_00 9:52

Tele G A L. Now we're gonna meet a real individual.

SPEAKER_02 9:56

Who is this?

SPEAKER_00 9:58

This is Judge Michael Conahan.

SPEAKER_02 10:00

And who's that?

SPEAKER_00 10:01

Judge Michael Conahan was convicted of trafficking children.

SPEAKER_02 10:07

Where do you know where he's in? Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania.

SPEAKER_00 10:12

Judge Conahan was a participant in a scheme. He used his gavel, his robe, his courtroom in order to send children to detention centers for money. And he was recently had his sentence commuted by President Joe Biden. So this is our cast.

SPEAKER_02 10:30

He had his sentence as what?

SPEAKER_00 10:31

His sentence commuted.

SPEAKER_02 10:32

What does that mean?

SPEAKER_00 10:33

He walked out of jail.

SPEAKER_02 10:35

So he's free man?

SPEAKER_00 10:37

Free man.

SPEAKER_02 10:38

Oh my word. Is he but he's not working anymore, right?

SPEAKER_00 10:40

But that's the kind of power that these people have.

SPEAKER_02 10:44

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 10:44

Power, affluence.

SPEAKER_02 10:46

We should get like a board and put all these up.

SPEAKER_00 10:48

So this is our cast of characters, okay? We have mom and dad, Robert Baratheon and Cersei Baratheon. We have their lawyers.

SPEAKER_02 11:01

We should get like blow-up dolls. We should blow up dolls being all those poster people.

SPEAKER_00 11:07

Saul Goodman and uh Billy Flynn. And then we have the Telegardian Ed Lightham and the esteemed Dr. Hannibal Lecter.

SPEAKER_02 11:18

Now, we didn't add in CPS or K other mediators because there's other mediators on top of this. Sometimes there's um we can we can add more therapists. So, like we had a therapist. We can add characters. Then there's co-parenting classes they want you to take together. That's another one, too. It just keeps going and going.

SPEAKER_00 11:37

There's no shortage of characters. We can add characters and we are open to suggestions.

SPEAKER_02 11:43

Yeah, open to suggestions.

SPEAKER_00 11:44

Villains from movies.

SPEAKER_02 11:45

So who should we add next?

SPEAKER_00 11:47

Well, let's start with what we know about these characters, okay? So wire fraud, there's the act of wire fraud, and that is involves using wires in order to engage in a scheme or artifice to defraud.

SPEAKER_02 12:01

What's artifice mean?

SPEAKER_00 12:02

It's just fake.

SPEAKER_02 12:03

Fake, okay.

SPEAKER_00 12:04

It's all artificial. Artifice.

SPEAKER_02 12:05

Sorry, I'm trying to do everything more so we'll understand.

SPEAKER_00 12:07

Yeah. But then there's conspiracy to commit wire fraud.

SPEAKER_02 12:12

Meaning on purpose when they all circle up together and da da da da da da.

SPEAKER_00 12:15

Two or more people and they take an act in furtherance. And the act does not have to be an illegal act.

SPEAKER_02 12:22

So just talking.

SPEAKER_00 12:24

So conspiracy law, I've practiced a lot of criminal defense and conspiracy law. And you can be held accountable for being a part of a conspiracy if you know there's an agreement to commit to violate the laws and you take an act in furtherance. And that doesn't mean you have to know everybody involved. So the Teleguardian adum may not know Judge Michael Conahan. May not know Dr. Hannibal Lecter. Okay? But if they know that there is an agreement to violate the laws, and they take an act in furtherance, i.e. retaliate against somebody.

SPEAKER_02 13:08

So you're saying, so people understand this.

SPEAKER_00 13:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 13:11

Two or more. So there's three people here. Two or more. So if they all decide, let's put the kids even in CPS, these three conspire, talk, communicate, work together to do it. That is conspiracy.

SPEAKER_00 13:24

Conspiracy to commit wire fraud. Yes.

SPEAKER_02 13:27

Because a lot of times it's email too.

SPEAKER_00 13:29

Emails are wires.

SPEAKER_02 13:30

I know.

SPEAKER_00 13:31

So we're going to get into how to put together a file. And so we're starting to practice like we play. We have a file. We've printed out the rules. Now let's talk about the bills. There's so much in family court, Meg, that is subjective. Okay? An opinion. Someone can form an opinion, and that's their professional opinion. And it's hard to go after an opinion.

SPEAKER_02 14:01

Right.

SPEAKER_00 14:02

Money is a hard piece of data. Okay. If you can look at your lawyer's invoice, or your co-parents' lawyer's invoice, or a Guardian Ed Lightham's invoice, or a doctor's invoice. A doctor's invoice. And you can trace that money back to any of these other casting characters, you will have traced potentially evidence in support of a crime.

SPEAKER_02 14:34

So for instance, let's say she's looking through her the therapist, or sorry, the G A L's bill, and she notices the G A L, you pull that out for me. Where's the G A L she notices that the GAL has been communicating only with her ex's attorney? Where is he at?

SPEAKER_00 14:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 14:56

Not hers. So what would that be?

SPEAKER_00 15:00

So here's an interesting part about this, okay? The the Guardian Adlitum's bills are something that you can audit as the parent. You get access to that. You can see what the Guardian Adelaideum was billing on. The first thing you want to look for is a single entry showing that that Guardian Ad Lightum ever met the children. Okay. Because that's the whole gig a relationship with the kids. And there's Supreme Court rules regarding that. The next thing you want to look for is how much of what they did is a wire and how much happened in real life.

unknown 15:40

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 15:41

So for instance, on mine, I highlighted email, email, call, and I made sure it was all highlighted to show that.

SPEAKER_00 15:50

Yeah. These folks basically what they do is under the remote work policies that we now have in place, they sit back in their office, they bill $250 an hour to basically look at their computer and rubber stamp whatever everybody else is saying.

SPEAKER_02 16:09

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 16:10

Okay. They never form a relationship with the child in order to figure out what the child wants or what's in the best interest of the child. They never form a face-to-face relationship with any of the witnesses, and they may never even know the people that are referring them cases. That's a pre-COVID thing. Now, if you're just a known name circulating in email inboxes, this Guardian Ad Lightum may spend the entirety of their time, they may bill $500,000 in a year and go physically in court five, six times? Yep. All of its wires. And so what you want to look for on these bills is you want to figure out how much of this is a wire up in the cloud. Who knows if it's true? Who knows whether it's you know a real fact or not? And how much is this person doing their actual job?

SPEAKER_02 17:11

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 17:12

Let me give you a famous example of wire fraud. Okay. Okay. Enron.

SPEAKER_02 17:17

Enron?

SPEAKER_00 17:18

Enron. Okay. Enron. The Enron scandal. Okay. The Enron scandal, you might think to yourself, what is you know trading and securities have to do with family law? Well, what they did with Enron is similar to what family courts are doing now. Enron, everybody pointed at everybody else. The accountants pointed at the lawyers and said, Well, the lawyers assured me that they were doing their job. The lawyers pointed at the accountants and said, Well, I read the accounting reports. I assumed the accountants were doing their jobs. The administrators pointed at the lawyers and the accountants and said, Well, I took those numbers at face value. And so now with remote work, everybody in this cast of characters is circulating information coming from two very unreliable people. Yeah. Okay. Uh these people have some beliefs, and the first people who should screen those beliefs before they get filed, pursuant to reasonable fees, are the lawyers. They're not supposed to be filing stuff, even if their client wants it, if it's not true and accurate.

SPEAKER_02 18:33

So that's one thing I found when I went through my divorce with my ex. He went through like five or six attorneys because those were good attorneys. They would not do what he wanted. He didn't want to, you know, take get take my children away from the other attorneys, didn't. So they just kept quitting after left and right because those are good attorneys that actually want to be a good person. And then you have those other attorneys, all they want they want is money.

SPEAKER_00 18:56

And these people absolutely exist.

SPEAKER_02 18:58

Oh, absolutely. Yeah. And now they do then is just keep spending so they get more money. And then they'll file whatever, just because guess what happens when you file something? Then they can both argue and that's more money for them.

SPEAKER_00 19:09

So here's something I will tell you is very common that has arisen now. Lawyers in family court, they will take fifty thousand dollars to rebut false information, but they will not take five dollars to file a motion to enjoin the opposing counsel from filing false information. That is true. They don't do that. They will not say to a judge, look, under the rules of civil procedure, you need to enjoin this lawyer from filing false information.

SPEAKER_02 19:42

It happens all the time.

SPEAKER_00 19:43

They'll take 50 grand to fight the false information, but they won't sanction opposing counsel. That could be taken as evidence of conspiracy to commit wire fraud.

SPEAKER_02 19:54

Oh.

SPEAKER_00 19:56

You are taking a circumstance where you've got two people, both of which are highly problematic people, but under the ethical rules, they still get a reasonably priced divorce. Okay. And what they're doing is they're artificially inflating their fees by having a silent agreement not to sanction one another.

SPEAKER_02 20:18

Just like law attorneys won't ask a judge to accuse himself.

SPEAKER_00 20:22

Saul Goodman and Billy Flynn. Saul Goodman knows Billy Flynn defends murderers and that he lies about it. Okay? And Billy Flynn knows that Saul Goodman is a methamphetamine trafficker and that he lies also. And that's the gig. That's what they're doing. They're artificially inflating things. They find people with resources like Robert Baratheon and Cersei Baratheon, and they file what those people asked them to file, and boom. That's how a $200,000, $300,000 divorce happens.

SPEAKER_02 20:55

$500 like mine.

SPEAKER_00 20:57

Now the rest of the cast of characters knows. Judge Conahan. Judge Conahan was convicted in federal court of this. Okay. He knew what he was doing. So this is not a theoretical issue. Dr. Lecter, this physician, there's probably a reason why Dr. Lecter is in private practice in family court and not on staff at a major university. There's a reason that the Teleguardian ad item is sitting on a beach somewhere looking at their computer. The thing about family law is you have some practitioners who are absolutely amazing people who are passionate about what they do, work their hardest, take on difficult cases, and push the system forward. That's absolutely true. And I would argue that's the majority of practitioners. But you have people in there.

SPEAKER_02 21:51

Not the ones that keep spinning in court. The same people use the same ones over and over again.

SPEAKER_00 21:56

You have some people in family court who are in family court. Because they can commit crimes.

SPEAKER_02 22:02

Yep, and they're protected.

SPEAKER_00 22:04

Right. And that's why we're getting into billing.

SPEAKER_02 22:08

So the first this week we're gonna do billing. Um, and then what's next after that? What other things should people start thinking about putting together for the next few weeks of the seasons?

SPEAKER_00 22:18

We're gonna go over billing and then we're gonna start to go over crimes. Okay. What how to find a statute, how to meet the elements, how to investigate, how to report. There's so much intersection between family law, civil law, and crime. And this is supposed to be informational, just not just for people who are victims, but for their attorneys, for law enforcement officers, and prosecutors. I I think that if this show were published to a law enforcement officer, a prosecutor, a family law attorney, or even used in a filing in court, the things I intend to teach should hold up to that scrutiny.

SPEAKER_02 23:04

Okay, so we're gonna start doing a fun new feature. I want you guys, when you guys watch this, I want you to ask a question. And I'll pick randomly pick a few questions for the next time we are doing a show together, and I'll ask Sean those questions that you will have. Um and then go ahead. Let's see who can figure out the next actor that we should talk about. Who's we could either do a CPS worker, we could do a come on, Sean, help me out of here.

SPEAKER_00 23:31

Well, I I want to finish uh therapists auditing the bills because once I teach everybody how to audit bills, then they're in a position to be truly dangerous.

SPEAKER_02 23:42

Is this just against court actors, or can it be a you know, let's say her sister is helping her ex and they're conspiring too with the attorneys. Are private parties a part of this?

SPEAKER_00 23:56

So, yes, conspiracy to commit wire fraud is conspiracy to commit wire fraud. There's no magic. I can't be charged with that shield. Okay. Okay. And so if a family, especially family members, I will tell you, Meg, that in criminal law, it's incredibly difficult to manage the expectations of family because they're all witnesses. And sometimes they're co-conspirators.

SPEAKER_02 24:21

Absolutely, a lot of times.

SPEAKER_00 24:22

So a situation I frequently find myself in is my client is in custody or my client is charged with a crime. They want me to talk to the family. I can't talk to the family because the state or me might actually send a subpoena to the family, force them to come testify at trial, they might have to raise their Fifth Amendment right to remain silent over the things that they did and said.

SPEAKER_02 24:46

Wow. That reminds me of the sh the Reed case where they all came in and said they plead the fifth and none of them had to testify.

SPEAKER_00 24:56

Right. And if you're thinking about having a jury trial in family court, if you can get witnesses to raise their Fifth Amendment right to remain silent in front of a jury, well, the jury can infer that they were about that that they're not commenting because they're gonna commit a uh talk about committing crimes.

SPEAKER_01 25:20

Right.

SPEAKER_00 25:20

So to a degree, if you are a family court practitioner, you know, an attorney, or you're a litigant and you say, I want a jury trial in my family court, and you think that a family member is a co-conspirator or committing a crime and it's relevant to the case, you can call them, and then they are confronted with the circumstance where they either have to refuse to comply with a lawful subpoena, which can be get them held in contempt, or they go up there, say what they actually did, and now they set it under oath, they could be charged with a crime, or they get up there and lie, even though you have evidence, they get charged with perjury, or they they go up there and raise their Fifth Amendment right to remain silent, and all of which is good for the victim of the crime.

SPEAKER_02 26:13

If there's a jury trial. If there's a jury trial, which it was impossible here in Kansas. But I want to change that. So you're saying when people when so you we're all learning on how to write these, you know, complaints and putting them with the FBI and all those agencies. So you're telling me we can include the private actors on there to talk about what they did to conspire with the other court actors.

SPEAKER_00 26:35

A conspiracy is a conspiracy. The the federal government um had did not place a limit on the number of people who could be in a conspiracy.

SPEAKER_02 26:45

It just has to be two or more.

SPEAKER_00 26:47

I have worked cases where there have been upwards of 30 people charged by the Department of Justice in a conspiracy. And and what I'll tell you is that there are two types of criminal organizations, okay? There are the kinds that you can dismantle, all right? Small organizations. You can go in, you can charge five, six, ten, fifteen, twenty of them, and once they're charged and indicted and convicted, that criminal conspiracy is gone. But then there are criminal conspiracies that all you can really do is disrupt. And that's getting to be what some of these large-scale organizations are. That's your Sinal or cartel, that's your Mexican mafia. Okay, those are organizations where you can indict a large group of people, and all you've really done is disrupted the the actions of that conspiracy. You didn't take it out. And the reason that jury trials are important is because who thinks they're gonna get a fair bench trial out of this fella, right? You're not gonna get a fair bench trial out of this guy because he knows all these people, he has them all the time in his court. To an extent, retention, judicial retention, depends entirely on the popularity of the bar.

SPEAKER_02 28:05

That's true, absolutely. So I'm gonna read over a few of these. So a lot of people, sorry, a lot of people ask where do we report fraud to? And this is on our website where you can download it. And it has all of them. It has the Federal Bureau of Investigation, which is the FBI, Federal Trade Commission. What's that short for that? Do they have a short?

SPEAKER_00 28:30

Uh FTC.

SPEAKER_02 28:31

FTC, the Federal Trade Commission. There's two on here. Theft and what's FTC? Oh, was one was just that ID theft. And then there's Beth Help. And the Internal Revenue Service, the IRS, you can report there too.

SPEAKER_00 28:47

So um, yeah, I you you have to be a little bit of a law nerd to appreciate this, but the FBI is not the only game in town. The IRS, they would consider all the money that this criminal enterprise is making to be laundered. So Robert and Cersei, they need their divorce, but they're due reasonable fees. And this criminal conspiracy exists to artificially inflate those fees. Well, you can't make money committing felonies and not pay taxes on it. It's dirty money. So you're laundering that money, which means all these bad actors you could conceivably file an IRS complaint, and the IRS is its own agency. And so they'll work it up from their angle.

SPEAKER_02 29:38

I love that.

SPEAKER_00 29:42

There's a lot of law enforcement agencies, technically, because this is all wires, it's all pay it's all patient portals, court portals, e-filing, digital signatures, emails, texts, calls, video conferences. It's all wires, which means it's cybercrime.

SPEAKER_02 30:01

Yeah. So we, I mean, we even have social security administrators, we have, I mean, this it goes front and back. Department of Justice, criminal trustees program, postal inspection service.

SPEAKER_00 30:14

So the United people don't know this, but the United States Postal Service has special agents. They are federal law enforcement agents. So if you send a bill in the mail or a medical report or a court order, and it's the product of fraud, that's mail fraud. And a special agent from the United States Postal Service will come in. And we and that's important because let's say the FBI doesn't pick it up, and the FBI frequently misses crimes. The Postal Service might pick it up.

SPEAKER_02 30:47

Yeah, it's funny because you know, we all know about the DOJ or FBI, but if you really look at all of this, there's a lot, and it'd be it, it it's checking and knowing this. That's the only reason we know this is because of you. But this is why it's important for you guys to take the time to go read all these, and they explain under each one what they do and how they do it. And a lot of them are online forms.

SPEAKER_00 31:10

Yeah. I'll tell you another one is the Secret Service. People don't know this.

SPEAKER_02 31:15

Oh, they have a cybercrime unit, yeah. Wow. All right. Well, we're excited for more time with you, Sean. And we are we also are excited to have people ask questions, find another court actor, and go find your invoices so we can show it up. Next up, we're gonna have Sean show you with an invoice exactly what to do in highlight. So that's next. Watch now.

SPEAKER_00 31:39

So this is a uh invoice. This is an example of a blank invoice, and I I used my own invoice so that I could show you all uh ethical billing. So you have a right to reasonable fees, which means it's not supposed to cost more than it should. And there's a process for how billing is done. So at the very top of the invoice, first off, it's a paper invoice. You're giving somebody something to hold on to, a piece for their file. Not everybody does paper invoices, but I do. You've got the name of the company, you've got the address for the company, you got the website for the company, and the phone and the email are at the website. You have the invoice and you have the date of the invoice. Then you have the name of the client, the address of the client, the city, state, and zip code of the client, and the case number. Now, down in here, we go over trees. Today's date would be July. What day is today? Today's July 12th. July 12th. So we're going to have to provide a description. Now we don't want to provide attorney client privilege information in our description, but we have to put enough of a descriptive in there so people know what we build for. Research 18 USC 1343 in relation to wire from Cersei Burathean on July 11th, 2026. That's a good looking entry. It doesn't tell you what's in the wire, but it tells you that I researched a statute. It was in relation to a piece of evidence that occurred on July 11th. That took a 0.5, which comes out to $250. Now, let's do another entry. July 12th. Sent a mail to opposing counsel regarding theory of 18 USC 1343. That's a point one. So I billed $50. July 12th. I gotta go to court. It's time to go to court and see the judge. Court time.5, $250. But also there's travel, and I gotta interview a witness. 12. Enter you witness Cersei's brother, Jamie, by phone. And that is a.2. So $100. And then travel. Travel to and court. 0.5. It's just right down the street. So right here, we have an invoice showing some billable entries. We have a total of $900. Now, these are wires. These three entries are wires. If I use these entries to commit a fraud on this court time, that could be wire fraud and obstruction of justice. And if there's separate acts, if this was wire fraud, then it could be three counts of wire fraud. And if they're eligible for elevated penalties, that's three million dollars. Now, let's go into our expenses. Mileage. We only spent a little bit of time driving. Let's say we drove 10 miles, office, court. Okay. We have we gotta okay. So we've got our rights, but we also had to send some postage. I had to write a letter. One. Okay, these are expenses. You can't upcharge on your expenses, but you can get paid for your expenses. You need your lawyer, needs track of expenses, and those expenses need to be laid out very clearly. And when you go through the file, you need to be able to find those expenses. Now, here's where wire fraud comes into play. If you're a virtual lawyer or a virtual guardian of Litum, you're not going to have any expenses because all you're doing is emailing, calling, and texting people, and maybe doing some portals. So let's say our expenses, our mileage is 7.2 and our costs are an even $10. Then we have billed $917.20. There's an invoice. We as a law as a law office, we did this work. We researched a law. We sent an email to opposing counsel regarding the theory of the law. We spent some time in court. We interviewed a witness, Cersei's brother Jamie, by phone, and then we traveled to and from court. $900 worth of work, $7.2 worth of mileage, $10 worth of costs, total of $917.20. Let's say that the client made a $1,000 payment. We can go and we can deduct $917.20 from that $1,000 payment. We can do so ethically. However, if there's no invoice and money got taken out of the trust account, that can be an ethical violation. If I take out more than $917, that can be an ethical violation. If I took out money before the invoice was completed, thinking I would do the invoice later, that could be a violation of the trust account. Now, where this becomes essential is if one of my expenses or one of the payments I made was to one of the other court actors, such as a referral fee to opposing counsel, referral fee to the guardian ed lightum, referral fee to the teletherapist, the teleguardian edlitem, those could be construed as kickbacks and financial conflicts of interest. So you need to go and you need to get all your invoices. And if your attorneys, GALs, therapists, and everybody else this judge is ordering you to pay don't have invoices, that's clue one that you potentially have a case of wire fraud. Once you have all your invoices and you've audited all your invoices, go and look for how much of it is wires. If you've got $50,000 worth of wires, but you only went to court for five minutes, then potentially you are the victim of wire fraud. If you got $50,000 worth of wires and you never set foot in a court of law, potentially you are the victim of wire fraud. If you have $50,000 worth of legal billing, you never set foot in a court of law, you never met anybody else outside of your computer, and everything in controversy is all emails, texts, and portals in your computer, then potentially you're the victim of wire fraud. What you can do if you're a criminal is you can generate false information in order to artificially inflate your own fees or to bill for fees that are not necessary. So this is how you bill for your services. Go and get your invoices.

SPEAKER_02 38:20

So thanks for the Stamp Meg show.

SPEAKER_00 38:22

I'm Meg, and this is I'm Sean, and I think there's uh less criminals in criminal law than in family law.

SPEAKER_02 38:32

And that's the truth, ain't it? So I'm Meg, the Stamp with Meg, voice for the Voiceless. Yes, we are. All right.