Thompson, who is representing himself after being removed from an Alabama civil case against the video game industry, has alleged that the Florida Bar encouraged opposing counsel to file so-called SLAPP lawsuits against him.
A Strategic Litigation Against Public Participation Lawsuit, or SLAPP, is one intended to create a chilling effect on the speaker by discouraging them from expressing a certain point of view.
At immediate issue in this case, are allegations by Thompson that Blank Rome, counsel for Take-Two, which produces the “Grand Theft Auto” series, has organized a number of SLAPP lawsuits to intimidate him.
“Grand Theft Auto” also has recently come under scrutiny from the Los Angeles City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo, who filed suit against the game’s producer in January for inserting pornographic images into the program.
According to Thompson, the battle to silence him is nothing new.
“In the early 1990s, for example, The Florida Bar, in league with pornographers and their attorneys, as well as with an operative of the American Civil Liberties Union, persuaded the Florida Supreme Court, ex parte, to enter an order mandating that Thompson must submit, without protest, to psychiatric and psychological tests administered by health care providers chosen by The Bar,” Thompson wrote in court papers.
Thompson went on to write that the Florida Bar had concluded that he was “unfit to practice law.” However, Thompson alleged that he was found to be “sane” and that the “Bar never got over this defeat and is now at it again at the behest of some of the same lawyers on behalf of some of the same broadcasters.”
