Note: in the podcast above is a short interview with Michelle Preston about Josh Silverman and the events of September 4, 2024.
It was September 4, 2024, and Michelle Preston had been preparing for weeks.
For months, Jeremy Hales had done everything to make her life miserable: follow her in his car, film her, make threats, phone calls, and more.
Preston went to a Florida court to get a restraining order.
Things didn’t go as planned. Initially, the case was assigned to Judge Craig DeThomasis. She got a restraining order but Hales behavior didn’t stop.
Preston initially pursued the TRO pro se, but eventually she got an attorney, Josh Silverman. Throughout, Silverman failed to zealously represent Preston.
Hales quickly turned Judge DeThomasis into a character in his ongoing YouTube neo-reality television drama, referring to him as Judge Grudge. Judge DeThomasis foolishly provided reasons why he should not be recused in an order denying his recusal, and this was enough to force him off the case.
He should have merely denied the order, without providing reasons.
Hales referred to Silverman as Silverscam, turning him into a character.
This may be why he was reticent to take decisive action.
Judge DeThomasis was removed but the case continued. Judge William Davis replaced Judge DeThomasis.
On September 4, 2024, Judge Davis held a hearing.
Michelle told me she expected her attorney to finally present the evidence she had gathered of the repeated violations of the TRO by Jeremy Hales.
“I was supposed to be getting a permanent protective order,” Michelle told me of what was supposed to happen at this hearing.
Instead, shortly before the hearing started, Silverman, who did not respond to an email for comment, was approached by Hales’s attorney, Randall Shochet.
Shochet and Hales did not respond to an email for comment.
The two- Shochet and Silverman- went outside, and when Silverman returned, he advised Michelle to withdraw the TRO.
He further told her that the judge would enter the courtroom momentarily, so she needed to make a decision quickly.
“He (Silverman) said ‘the judge is going to be here in a few seconds, and I think you need to dismiss it.’” Michelle told me. “The judge walked in right at that moment, and Silverman told the judge that we were dismissing it.”
The judge congratulated the parties for coming to an agreement and then warned them not to put this content on YouTube.
Hales ignored that warning. He posted the video below later that day.
To make matters worse, Silverman failed to get a release, which would have protected from then being sued by Hales.
Silverman tried to defend himself in an email to Matzkin.
While Silverman secured an end to these proceedings, he did not make sure that Hales could not pursue further legal action as a result of his client dismissing the TRO.
Hales creates legal proceedings which he turns into content; as such, in a separate lawsuit filed against Preston and ten others, he cited her voluntary dismissal of this TRO as malicious prosecution.
Not only had Silverman failed to litigate Preston’s legitimate TRO case, but he failed to protect her from the frivolous litigation that is Hales M.O.
