Hack magistrate ignores perjury, chaos reigns
Magistrate Zach Bolitho has no problem with perjury, and that's why a bogus case continues to linger.
Jeremy Hales committed perjury; his attorney, Randall Shochet, suborned perjury.
A federal magistrate, Zachary Bolitho, ignored the perjury, and as a result, a year’s worth of legal madness transpired over a bogus case.
On March 26, 2024, Jeremy Hales, the popular YouTuber, filed an affidavit in his federal lawsuit against John Cook and Michelle Preston, which included paragraph 19, “Mr. Cook’s and Ms. Preston’s online posts calling me a child predator are constant and ongoing to this day. Their behavior is escalating, and they are harassing me in Ohio and in Florida.”
There is no evidence that Cook and Preston made any online posts calling Hales a “child predator” let along made “constant and ongoing” posts calling him a child predator.
Hales sued Cook and Preston primarily for some incendiary signs posted in several places in Otter Creek; the signs falsely claimed that he was a child predator. There is dispute over who made the signs {my bet his Hales himself}.
He sued them under RICO, the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, arguing extortion.
He also claimed tortious interference, arguing that their criticism somehow interfered with his business relationships.
Paragraph 19 was not included in the original complaint; it was added later.
All his allegations were dubious. Only three people saw the signs; there was no extortion or tortious interference.
This is important because in federal court damages must be a minimum of $75,000.
When Bolitho initially looked at this issue, he argued that numerous things which would later be thrown out factored into determining that potential $75,000 or more in damages.
Bolitho later dismissed the extortion charges, bundled into RICO. Hales, in a December 2024 deposition, admitted none of his customers were contacted directly by Cook and Preston, which only leaves the signs and the alleged on-line posts.
The signs were only seen by three people- the three who filed affidavits.
That leaves the purported messages on social media. Messages left on social media are blasted to the world. There’s no doubt there would be over $75,000 in damages if Cook and Preston falsely accused Hales of being a child molester on Facebook, X, etc.
Only, there’s no evidence that they posted these messages.
This was something that Bruce Matzkin, who previously represented Cook and Preston, noted when he filed a subsequent 12B1 motion, a federal code for a motion to dismiss.
I emailed Hales and Shochet asking for any of these supposed online posts calling him a child predator. They didn’t respond.
The closest Shochet came was in his response to Matzkin’s motion, by citing irrelevant posts.
Given numerous chances, Hales and Shochet have failed to produce these alleged posts.
Jeremy Hales lied in his affidavit; Randall Shochet suborned that lie, and that lie was made under oath- perjury.
Faced with clear evidence that Shochet and Hales conspired to lie under oath to create the illusion that there was enough damages in the lawsuit to meet federal legal minimums, Magistrate Bolitho failed to do any analysis and instead stated in a footnote, “The Court is unpersuaded by Defendants’ argument that this general rule should not apply because Plaintiff acted in bad faith. The Court does not find that Plaintiff acted in bad faith in asserting at the time of filing that the amount in controversy exceeded $75,000.”
That order was filed on March 17, 2025.
Had he done the right thing and dismissed the case for failing to meet the statutory minimums, a year’s worth of useless content and harassment of Cook and Preston by Hales would have been avoided.
Post-script
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This is what judicial malpractice looks like. Jeremy Hales lied under oath to inflate damages. His lawyer, Randall Shochet, rode shotgun. The evidence gap was obvious: no posts, no customers contacted, three people saw signs of disputed origin. That’s not $75,000—it's zero. Zachary Bolitho ducked the analysis and shrugged in a footnote. Had he enforced jurisdictional law, a year of harassment and nonsense would’ve ended. Ignore perjury, and you invite it. Courts that tolerate lies become factories for them.