John Galt Presents: Clayton Wade of Premiere Homes Sues the Great Galt

Greetings everyone. I've been away for almost 5 months. I published my last article at the end of August explaining that I would be taking off a year to focus on my business. However, Clayton Wade of Premiere Homes in Jontien Beach has hatched a new plan to take on The Great Galt for slander. So, as you might expect, it's time for me to rev up the web site again for this most interesting and informative topic...

We have heard on various Thailand web sites that just anybody and everybody can be sued and shut down / shut up from having a say in a public forum. It has been said that laws here in Thailand are very strict about publishing anything negative about another party. I think it's time that we examine this first hand with a real case. I am looking forward to investigating this topic to the fullest.

Does Thai law protect the interests of foreigners in regards to slander? Is the burden of proof on the publisher of the material to show that it is true? What are the penalties? Is this a law suit that the Thai court system will take seriously?

I think it's time we found just what kind of teeth this law has as it pertains to farangs, and the publishing of information on the Internet.

This is the first part of the official document. This is written entirely in Thai. The translation is below.


Cover Page	Page 1	Page 2	Page 3

Page 4 Front	Page 4 Back

This identifies the plaintiff as Clayton Wade and it identifies me as the accused by my full legal name as Russel Keith Summers. The remainder of the page is, "Mr Clayton Wade the plaintiff accuses the defendant of breaking the law as it written up in this complaint. The court will call to order a hearing on the 17 of March 2008. Time 13:30 So we have informed the accused to be there. My address is on the back (Clayton's).

The case is for deformation of character (Slander) I am Mr Clayton Wade of American nationality. Occupation: Business man. Age 57. Address: 240/21 Jontien Beach / [sub district, etc]

This complaint is against Russel Keith Summers. Nationality American. Occupation Businessman. [Address]. Point #1 The defendant owns the web site called www.notstickmanbangkok.com and its registered by the web site called GoDaddy.com in 16 Aug 2006.

The details of the registration will be shown by Clayton at the hearing. Point #2 About October 2007 in the mid month, the day and the time is not known. We found that defendant broke many sections of the law. He posted libelous words on the defendant’s web site www.notstickmanbangkok.com. This web site presented words by David Cradduck says that said that “I was contacted … [follows are exerpts from the article on the web site. These same portion are contained in English and Thai in the documents below]”

By the way, Mr. Summer and David Cradduck communicated with each other by email it seemed like defamation of the plaintiff. And the accused took the defamatory comments and put them on his web site and words are there in continuously slandering the plaintiff. Speaking of the experiences of David and Clayton Wade saying: “he stole my money”, “He lied about the costs”. "I think that Clayton has a mental problems." and "I think that he will steal money from other people. When he feels that he can take advantage of them."

"I think he has a mental problem – he likes to be confrontational. My advice is don’t use his service...” The detail is in the web site with translation in Thai. All of this is not true. It’s lies. It’s slander. He is strongly defaming the plaintiff. Its not an opinion of a pure heart (not said in kindness). And in this way it damages the plaintiff towards 3^rd parties if they should read and see this. And the one who read this will think I’m a bad guy and a liar, and they will hate me. This writing will also damage my reputation. Others will look down on me and I will be hated by my customers and other 3^rd parties who read this web site notstickmanbangkok.com. Because of this the accused breaks the criminal law 326.328.332 and the computer law 2007 14 / 1 with section 3 and section 4 with the electronic business law year 2000. This infraction occurred in the town of Nakhon Phanom. In this case I didn’t go to the police because I wanted to do this myself.

Finally, The accused who is previously identified, broke the criminal law number 326.328.332 by the computer law. We request that court call and set a hearing and make a judgment in this case.

The remaining pages are the English and Thai translation of the items that were pulled off the web site and translated.


Translation Page 1	Translation Page 2	Translation Page 3	Translation Page 4	Translation Page 5

Translation Page 6	Translation Page 7	Translation Page 8	Translation Page 9	Translation Page 10

I don't know about you but I get a real kick out of the line where Clayton says he didn't want to go to the police because he wanted to "do it himself".

This case appears to have been set right here in my home town. Oh lovely, I get to meet one of the judges in town. I have not appeared in front of any of them before. No doubt they will recognize me as the silly farang who is always running around town (literally). I get that frequently. I commonly jog a 5k loop around town and I do it on different days and at different times and unavoidably, the locals take notice of me. I've been doing this for 6 years here so occasionally I will meet a new face and they will say they have seen me before.

I have been to the police station or interacting with police on 4 or 5 different specific occasions, but never been to court before. I have been to court several times in the US. One time I represented myself in a civil case where I was the plaintiff. That was a little nerve-racking but it turned out alright for me. This is going to be different. I'm a foreigner in a foreign land. There are no guarantees of fairness here. The law is weak here too. That may help or that may hurt me.

Will I ultimately wimp out and cave in to the Evil Clayton Wade? Or will I power through this challenge and prevail in bold John Galt style?

I hear axes grinding right now.... The sharks are circling... The Stickman Bangkok Team is already planning a celebration dinner a Livingstones in Bangkok.

Let's not forget that Clayton Wade is strongly connected to Marc Holt who is another real estate agent. And Marc Holt is very closely associated with Paul Owen -- Stickman. I believe Stickman says they are best friends. So what kind of boys club do you think we have going here? Just what caliber of people are part of the Stickman Bangkok Team? As an outsider looking into Thailand, are you beginning to see the shadows of the pieces now? Are they close enough to "connect the dots"?

I would say that Marc Holt has a hand in assisting Clayton. Funny thing about all this is that Stickman may actually feel some heat from all the hoopla concerning this law suit. Wouldn't that be an interesting twist to this whole story.

.... Is there a possible conspiracy brewing that may suggest that Marc Holt is helping to instigate trouble so that pressure will build against Stickman and cause him to turn over the StickmanBangkok.com web site to Marc?

I originally had a long piece here about a self professed Real Estate Agent named Clayton Wade. This piece was highly critical of his business dealing in Pattaya.

The end result of that case (the verdict was delivered in early October of 2008) cleared me of any computer crime but held that what I had published was indeed slanderous. This is not surprising as we defended on the basis of the jurisdiction of the web site and the computer crime. We made little effort to prove out the content. We made an assumption that since all my actions were on the computer that once the computer was cleared, I would be cleared. The judge did not see it that way.

The slander laws at work here in Thailand are very tight and in this case, I believe they covered the tracks of someone who is unsavory in business and deserve to be talked about in the public domain. That is my opinion.

I of course did not agree with this court's decision, we are appealing that decision.

The judge in the case ordered me to remove that content from my web site or face harsher punishment. So, this is only an article. And I'm not concerned about the article not appearing at this time.

When and if we win the appeal on this case, I will return the article back to the site. Until that time, I can only warn you that you must be very prudent when doing business in Thailand. Don't trust anybody -- especially me. Don't believe a word I say here. You ask around and prove things to yourself before bring your hard earned money here in any kind of investment.

As for a visit -- this is a great place and should be experienced. I have no reservation about tourism here in Thailand.

Sure, why not? It's been a while since I have "taken the stick" to Stickman. Let's strap him down to the whipping post for another session of chastisement -- shall we? Come along now...

I find it greatly amusing that the former self proclaimed "Bangkok Commentator" is giving us a lesson on the merits and drawbacks of telling the truth. I guess he is especially sensitive when he is on the receiving end when someone else is shoveling the buffalo shit.

Um, Mr Stickman, what about your readership? Aren't they entitled to the truth each time you publish, or when pushed are you going to say on occasion, "Finit" also?

Nooooo.... The Great Stickman is much too smooth for that. He will never admit to lying to anyone on his web site. That just won't do. That is just below him.

In some cases Stickman doesn't lie either -- not directly. We have seen him acquiesce to his readership when a topic comes up that he just can't face the truth on.

A few columns back Stickman felt pressure to make a small public statement about what was going on with the girls in the column. Do you remember reading this passage in http://www.stickmanbangkok.com/StickMarkII/Farangdom.htm

He made an excuse about how his personal life is not that interesting. I believe his personal life is not that interesting either, but it is significant as it applies to the column. They wanted to know what the scoop was in the sudden changing of the females in the "Ask Mrs. Stick" column. I think this is a fair question. Is the Stick divorced? Was the Stick just on the outs with Mrs Stick temporarily? Or, did Mr Stick just employ a younger more attractive Thai girl to take over for a while when Mrst Stick was on hiatus?

Stickman puts himself out on-line for public consumption. I think the readership was right to ask the question to a public commentator who seems to have a answer for nearly everything else. Stickman continues in that paragraph to say:

See how he uses miss-direction to dissuade you from drilling him for an answer? People, let me stress to you -- here in Asia when someone tries to dismiss the details of a topic just because they are quote "boring stuff", that is the moment that you look someone in the eye and point and say "Don't Buffalo Shit me". If you as a reader are willing to sit back and quietly accept this lame answer then you're a candidate for being taken advantage of in one way or another here in Asia.

Quick poll here: Who really believes "The whole purpose of the column is to provide a few thoughts about life in the land of smiles?" He claims this is all about "raising your odds of having a good time". Is there any leading deception in these statements at all? (just a rhetorical question).

Does the Great Stickman really lie out rightly to his readership? I would say in some cases yes, but he more frequently bends his words in a form that he would consider more beneficial to everyone and therefore convinces himself that the adjustment is honest in its own rite. This may be perhaps something like the Stickman Shell Game where you're looking through the column trying to figure out which article is real news... -->Is is the story about the On-Line Dating site (no, that is a paid advertisement). ---> Is it the notice about the frequently recurring Annual Party Celebration at Electric Blue in Patpong (na, that's just a perk for a friend)... --->Is it under Stickman's Shell number 3, the story about his hair dresser? Damn, he's written so much Buffalo Shit that you can't be for sure where the real news is. Oh, he is slick one alright.

He uses (with some skill I might add) the favored Thai principle of "plausible deniability". I'm going to step out on a limb here and say that Stickman's skill at conditioning his words at manipulating the truth is close to pathological. It's so good and so smooth that I would have to guess that Stickman himself buys into it to the point where he would pass a lie detect test.

So, now perhaps you are questioning to yourself... Do I lie? Does the The Great Galt lie? I think we can all can relate to what we call "little white lies". And I have to laugh... it pains me to no end when a girl who I know walks up to me, and introduces her goat faced friend and in a moment of glee and excitement presents her to me asking, "Isn't she beautiful?" (Suuawai Mai?). OH, do I hate that and I'm terrible at it and with a wide eye response and a partially distressed smile on my face, I concede and go along with it and agree that she is "cute" (Na Luck).

However, what is totally unacceptable to me is lying to gain money from other people. That is what Stickman was so upset about in his column this week. (How is that shoe feeling Mr. Stick?) The girl was trying to steer him into buying a different phone that she had in stock (and I think he claimed she was doing it by possibly miss-leading him about the features of another model). It would have helped her gain the extra 60 baht commission by making a sale. Like most girls on the bottom end of the economic scale, she is probably always pinching pennies to make her ends meet and when you're down on cash like that -- well, you try to make a sale.

But -- what about Stickman? He is "selling a phone" every week in his columns? Hum? Is he trying to convince you to sign up for an on-line singles dating web site because he says, "If you want the best that Thailand has to offer, you have to go for one of the many pay sites." Was that the truth? Or does Stickman just want a few more baht in his pocket so the following week he would have the extra cash to buy that new telephone that he wanted? Humm.....

The girl who was selling Stickman his phone was probably poor, but Stickman has a solid high paying English teaching job. He clearly has enough money to eat. He would be considered well off my many of the Thai natives here. So, in this case which person is doing the most evil deed? Who is to be held at great fault? Neither? Both?

This is the fundamental problem that I have always had with Stickman. I claim that he steers his column through a very fuzzy line between reporting the facts and lying about the facts to stimulate you as reader to spend money as he directs you to do so. And in spending your money on his advice he extracts a profit in it. And I think I have presented compelling evidence in the past to suggest Stickman isn't always giving you the best advice for your pocketbook.

You know, Stickman has another option with the phone girl. He could said to her, "Here is 50 baht. Can you call me when the first phone of this type comes in and I'll run right down here and buy it from you". I think Stickman would have really won her over big with a nice gesture like that. She would have probably called around to other shops and bird dogged that phone for him and taken really good care of him.... But as it turned out, Stickman left that situation a mess. She was upset, he as upset.

Believe it or not, a similar things happened to me when I bought my last telephone. I wanted the Motorola Razr and I wanted it in Black. It was out of stock in that color. So I flirted with the girl at the counter and I asked her to call me when it came in. And this exactly what she did.

I think part of having a good experience in Thailand is understanding things from another person's perspective and then looking for a way to push everything in a positive direction.

I believe so much of Stickman's problems and troubled perception arises from the fact that as a child he probably never was poor and really doesn't relate to the natives here many of whom are struggling financially.

Does he ever write about troubles with a higher society rich person? No. Why not?

First, if you remember my column a few months back -- I was told my Marc Holt (a very close friend to Stickman) that they were divorced. You can review that here The Stickman Bangkok Team Confession. This past week Stickman says he is asking for wine from Australia and speaks of his "Mrs. dreadful habit of drinking too much" of it.

The Mrs. Stickman column looks like it was written by the same person as before. Her language skills are looking exactly the same as before. So, I think we can easily conclude the Mrs. Stick and Mr. Stick never did get a divorce as The Stickman Bangkok Team had claimed. So why would they lie about this? Is there a good reason?

First let me premise this by saying that I don't have the whole picture. I'm entirely guessing at the answers from indirect suggestive evidence.

I don't know who this Miss Udon was or just how real she was. Stickman found a need to bring her to the Big Mango Bar a few months back and give her a public viewing. I guess that the Stickman readership was doubting her true existence (because he just doesn't stick is neck out for no reason). Whether she was the real person behind the column or not for that smaller length of time is anyone's guess. My guess is that Miss Udon was just a front to hide Mrs Stickman. I think Mrs. Stick was always there and always making the responses to the questions in the column under the name of Miss Udon. One of the big clues to this is when Miss Udon called Udon Thani a small town in a column a few months back. Anyone who is from Issan would not consider Udon Thani small. It's nearly one of the biggest cities around in this part of the country. If you were reading my columns back then you'll remember that I busted her on this issue. This would have been a mistake that Mrs Stickman might have made not being from that area.

One thing I know for sure. From one-on-one contact directly with Mrs. Stickman, I know that she felt very afraid my my work here on this web site. I would imagine that she is still afraid of it today. See; she is a school teacher (and probably a fine one at that because her education from England appears to be quite strong). And if someone causes trouble for her at her place of employment, she will loose her job. It would be easy to track her down. Stickman is fairly easy to find and any investigator worth their weight could follow him home and then Mrs Stickman would be out in the open. I think that prospect terrifies her. Part of the real problem is that she does not have the freedom as a teacher to be involved in any way with a farang who is connected to the naughty night life. And if her husband, Mr. Stickman is running this illegal business, and also doing private investigation work (that's right people, Stick lied about this too in past on-line interviews, the Stickman PI business is alive and well), and if it is perceived that he is involved with Stick who may be separating farangs from their moneys in creative ways, she can loose her job over her involvement with Stickman's work.

Mrs. Stick did call me on the phone last year. We did exchange some email. I think she had to do this so she should "feel me out" a little bit. She wanted to know first hand, "Am I a loony"? And I understand her wanting to know. So, the fact that I stopped publishing my column 5 months back probably opened the door for her to return to being Mrs. Stickman as normal.

I would almost guess that, if things started to heat up again between me and The Stickman Bangkok Team that he (Stickman) would manufacture an appropriate reason and she would exit the column once again.

By the way, she never called me a loony. She referred to me as being possibly "too focused". LOL. Too focused? Hum, I'm my past I recall that I've never lost money by being too focused. Rather quite the opposite. Not being focused enough has previously been a problem. From her perspective, I view this comment as a compliment.

There has been a renewed interest in the US and other western countries to reduce the fur trade. Hollywood stars and starlets alike are speaking out against those who appreciate pelts like that of the beaver. So, as a semi-responsible patron of the NNL here in Thailand I am willing to help extend out this righteous pursuit and stand with my follow brethren in calling for an immediate cessation of hostilities against the beaver. Gentlemen, lets all pitch in and raise our awareness for kindness to all beavers. Let it be known that we discourage, trimming, shearing, or otherwise de-follicle-izing beavers. These actions are demeaning and insensitive. Let's all embrace beavers and be kind to them. Thank you so much for your attention during this pubic service announcement.

When I published the last article in late August, the readers were looking at these articles. The ones on the top are the most recent and nothing seemed out of the ordinary. The most recent articles were the ones more viewed and I count this as pretty normal.

However, in the past 2 months, we see an slightly unusual pattern. The image on the left is the statistics from December of 2007 and the one on the right is Jan 2008 (last month). I still get thousands of hits despite being off-line for 5 months. However, look at the more popular pages....

Why is it that readers are taking a deeper interested in "Farangs Above The Law"? That article was posted back in late October of 2006. If anyone out there has some insight to this, I would sure like to hear from you.

And the next most read article is on divorce money "Gnern Yaah" posted in Feb 2007. That makes some sense -- but why now? Are more men investigating marriage to a young Thais during this time of year?

People, its nice to be back this week. My intent to publish sporadically enough over the next 8 to 10 weeks to cover this litigation. We'll watch and follow along with this law suit until it's conclusion. I know we'll all gain some insights to how this can affect us here in Thailand. I won't be talking too much about the strategy here but, I promise to bring the all the information to you about how it progresses and of course ultimately the results. Will the Galt be thrown in Jail? Or will I somehow slip through the jaws of Claytons legal machine unscathed?

On a side note: Personally, I think it high time the Thai government kicked out all the farangs out of the real estate business. I don't see any really good reason to keep those guy/gals in those positions. That market has matured now. The Thais should be able to handle it. There are severe restrictions on foreign real estate ownership anyhow.

The general rule for jobs here in Thailand is that if a Thai can really do it -- then a foreigner should not be taking the job away from the Thai. Agree? Disagree?

If you have an opinion about this suit and you want to express it -- feel free to send it into me here at NotStickmanBangkok@gmail.com