A US Federal Court has awarded Oxebridge Quality Resources and its founder $1.6 million in compensatory damages in the defamation lawsuit against the certificate mill operators Daryl Guberman and Don LaBelle, along with their company Guberman PMC LLC.
The suit was launched by Oxebridge as an “omnibus” defamation suit against multiple defendants; the other defendants settled with Oxebridge prior to trial, under confidential settlement terms. Guberman and LaBelle opted to take a “sovereign citizen” defense, consistently refusing to recognize the Judge’s authority over them. At one point, Guberman appeared to threaten the judge in an email sent to the judge’s chambers. The judge warned the two that they faced “coercive incarceration” for their failure to recognize the court’s Orders.
Guberman and LaBelle have collectively published over 200 separate URLs of defamatory material, falsely accusing Oxebridge and founder Christopher Paris of fraud, terrorism, anti-Semitism and theft. They then filed dozens of fraudulent DMCA notices with Oxebridge web hosts, in attempts to shut down the Oxebridge website.
Daryl Guberman
The two operate a series of websites and alleged companies that offer a variety of ISO related certification services, none of which are independently accredited. Guberman-PMC certifies companies under the accreditation banner of “ABAC,” which appears to be a website operated by Guberman and LaBelle themselves; “ABAC” itself does not appear to ever have been legally formed. They then claim various other “accreditations” by citing companies such as IndustrialPR and MfgPartners, none of which are actual accreditation bodies but merely websites created by LaBelle for other purposes entirely.
The two then issued fake certificates to businesses for everything from restaurant food safety, handgun manufacturing, and medical device manufacturing. At least some of their clients were not aware that the certifications were fake.
In 2014, Guberman agreed to certify a fictional company named “Life Sink” that alleged to manufacture life vests made of cement. Guberman uses the photos of dead veterans to falsely claim his staff includes veterans. He was arrested in 2015 for DUI.
Despite his troubled past Guberman found support from US TAG to ISO TC 176 leaders Paul Palmes, Alka Jarvis and Lorri Hunt.
Sovereign Citizens
Guberman had openly attacked his own lawyer, Bruce Minnick of Tallahassee, and then took to YouTube to accuse Florida courts of being a judicial “hellhole,” suggesting the Judge was being bribed and the attorneys on both sides colluding to defeat him. He did not name the Judge directly, however.
Despite being the attorney on record, Minnick was largely sidelined when Guberman openly ordered him to stop representing Guberman PMC. US Federal Civil rules require a corporation to be represented by an attorney.
Guberman and LaBelle then adopted “sovereign citizen” arguments, filing repeated motions claiming the courts had no jurisdiction over them. Sovereign citizens use a mix of made-up legal interpretations and bizarre conspiracy theories to claim that US laws do not apply to them. The FBI has branded the sovereign citizen movement as a domestic terrorist threat.
Declaring themselves sovereign, Guberman and LaBelle repeatedly refused to show up for hearings, participate in court-ordered mediation, or respond to court orders. At one point, Guberman appeared to threaten either the judge or the mediator by writing, “come and get me” and “you will have to take my last breath.”
Guberman claimed to be running for US Senate and solicited campaign donations, but never registered as an actual candidate; at the time he was running, no election for Senate was even underway.
The Federal judge in the case, William F. Jung, largely struggled to deal with the sovereign citizen angle, appearing not to have prior experience on how to handle rogue, pro se defendants. Since then, the sovereign citizen threat has become more prominent, and court officials are becoming more skilled in dealing with them.
Guberman railing at a photo of the Federal Judge who ruled against him.
Both men then tried to launch lawsuits against Judge Jung, but both cases were immediately thrown out. They used well-known sovereign citizen tactics in that case, simultaneously arguing that the courts had no jurisdiction over them even as they atteempted ot use the same court’s jurisdiction in their suits against the judge.
Guberman then launched a series of YouTube videos where he shouts at a photo of the Federal Judge, claiming the case was rigged. He falsely accused Judge Jung, his own attorney, and Oxebridge’s lawyer of colluding and of bribery. In one video, Guberman appears unkept, unshaven and sweaty, shouting “Invictus!” as he boasts about his intent to defy the US Federal Court.
More Damages Likely Forthcoming
The Court had previously thrown out all of Guberman and LaBelle’s filings, and finally declared the two in contempt of court, awarding a blanket default judgment in Oxebridge’s favor. The exact amount awarded to Oxebridge was “$1,614,350.00 as compensatory damages, together with post-judgment interest.” .
Don LaBelle
Despite this, Guberman was recently discovered to have been using official Court filings to cold-call additional companies, in order to defame Oxebridge and Paris further. It’s not clear how many such companies he has called, but the number could be over 100. If so, then Guberman will face additional sanctions by the Court.
It is not expected that Guberman or LaBelle will comply with the latest orders, nor make any actual payments, setting them up for additional battles with the US Federal Court system.
To date, Oxebridge has emerged as the prevailing party in every single lawsuit it has been involved in.
The Oxebridge case represents one of the largest internet defamation awards ever granted to a plaintiff in the US court system.
UPDATE 20 May 2020: In a bizarre post on the Guberman PMC website, Guberman and LaBelle have declared “victory” in the lawsuit, while also indicating they will be announcing that they have won a $2.1 million judgment. They then claim the case is going before the Supreme Court; further on the page, the two write that the case was already decided and that they will be publishing the Supreme Court decision “soon.”
In the US, it can take a decade for a case to wind through various Federal appeals courts before reaching the Supreme Court, and even then, the high court may not take on the case. Guberman and LaBelle have not filed any appeals at all.
The post makes more false claims, all but ensuring the current award granted to Oxebridge will be increased and that a permanent restraining order will be issued against Guberman and LaBelle. This includes a false claim that Paris attempted to have “Americans incarcerated for expressing their freedom of speech,” that Oxebridge is “failing,” that Paris is “a mouthpiece for ANAB,” and that Oxebridge promotes China.
The article then makes a number of increasingly disjointed claims which appear to pander to fringe right-wing groups:
The $2.1M victory will be announced in your honor as freedom loving Americans with support of the TEA PARTY (thank you!!) as well as fellow liberators IndustrialPR and The MAGA Group. We must bring this tyranny public… just like our founding fathers! AMERICA WILL WIN! LONG LIVE FREEDOM!
The same page includes a video by Guberman alleging the summons originally served on him was fake, implying that the entire trial never happened.
UPDATE June 2020: The Oxebridge case was cited in a separate case launched by the Securities and Exchange Commission, SEC v Kinetic Investment Group.
UPDATE February 2021: Guberman and LaBelle have since begun fighting among themselves, resulting in LaBelle publicly denouncing his former partner. LaBelle issued an apology to Paris and Oxebridge, and the two remain feuding.
