R.L. Hymers threatens Little Miss Attila to suppress reporting on the Hymers cult — becomes MUCH more famous

Robert Leslie Hymers, III, in order to clear his name, on account of it being almost identical to that of Robert Leslie Hymers, Jr., his father, has launched a campaign of libel and intimidation against my fairy blogmother, Little Miss Attila, aka Joy McCann. It includes making spurious claims in an effort to get the FBI involved.

Counter-intuitively to Hymers III — but not to bloggers — he is now MUCH more famous than he was before he began. Also counter-intuitively to Hymers III, who says he is trying to clear his own name before beginning law school, he has besmirched his name globally to anyone who Googles him from now on as part of their due diligence before doing business with him. That is because people can tell the difference between a father and a son and not visit the sins of the father on the son.

But now R.L. Hymers III has sinned on his own account. He has gone on record as going to considerable effort to discover the address of someone and threatening her for belonging to a private Yahoo group and writing about her experiences on her blog, including threats to publish her home address. And somehow this proto-lawyer did not consider the remedies available to him and his father under the laws of libel — although, dagnabbit, one of the elements of libel is that the statements have to be false — which may be why he did not take that avenue of pursuit.

Joy has the full story at her place:

“Robert Leslie Hymers, III, Sort-Of ‘Reports’ Me to the FBI”

“And the Second Threatening Letter from the Hymerses’ Attorney”

And, as dear Attila notes, the blogosphere exploded:

Eric, at Classical Values:

Joy McCann (who writes Little Miss Attila — a blog I have enjoyed for years), is being subjected to legal attacks for criticizing a man many people would consider religious crackpot and cult leader, one R.L. Hymers.

Let me begin by saying that I never heard of R.L. Hymers until today! Perhaps I don’t keep up with these things as I should, but seeing an old blogosphere friend under attack for exercising her First Amendment rights made me want to learn about the attacker.

Dr. James Joyner of Outside the Beltway: “Fun with Cults.”

Stacy McCain of The Other McCain: “Siccing the FBI on Little Miss Attila?”

Prof. Glenn Reynolds, aka Instapundit: “It’s seldom a good idea to send legal threats to bloggers.” My addendum: Unless it is your intention to become famous/infamous.

Dan Collins of Piece of Work in Progress (aka POWIP): “Little Miss Attila Referred to FBI by Son of Cult Leader.”

Moe Lane: “Because the FBI has no *real* demands on its time, of course.”

Bob Belvedere at Camp of the Saints: “Robert Leslie Hymers III: Pipsqueak/Weasel.” And H/T to Bob for the link to the Memeorandum thread on Hymers’ threats against Little Miss Attila.

Da Tech Guy: “I Stand with Little Miss Attila.” As do I, Attila, as do I.