A big thank you goes out to the ANON reader who found this and brought it to my attention!

STEUBENVILLE - A common pleas court judge will allow a family suing a blog site to issue subpoenas to find out the identities of anonymous people who made blog posts in connection with a rape investigation involving two Steubenville High School student-athletes.
Jefferson County Common Pleas Judge David Henderson Thursday said attorney Shawn Blake can issue the subpoenas but the people whom Blake is trying to identify have the right to file their own motion to quash the subpoena.

Cody Saltsman and his parents, James and Johna Saltsman, filed the lawsuit in connection with comments made on the blog prinniefied.com, operated by Alexandria Goddard of Columbus, in connection with a rape investigation.

The Saltsmans are seeking an injunction to have alleged false and defamatory statements removed from the blog site. The family also is seeking monetary damages and a public apology.

Blake has obtained the Internet protocol addresses of the persons who made the posts on the blog site. Henderson said Blake can issue subpoenas to Comcast Cable, MI-Connction, AT&T, Cincinnati Bell and Verizon to obtain information related to the Internet protocol addresses.

The judge said Goddard, if she knows the identity of the anonymous people, should notify those people of the pending discovery and tell them they have 14 days to file a motion to stop the subpoena and the information being released that will make their identity known. The judge said the Internet providers who will be subpoenaed also should notify their customers of the pending discovery.
Henderson said good cause exists for the discovery to be permitted because there is a substantial risk the evidence in question will be destroyed, deleted or erased.

Goddard hasn't been served with the lawsuit and wasn't in court Monday during a hearing about the information on the computer servers. Goddard was represented by attorney Thomas Haren of Independence during the hearing. Haren refused to tell Henderson where Goddard is located, claiming attorney-client privilege.

Blake has hired private investigators to find Goddard, but they haven't been successful.

A civil lawsuit with potentially major ramifications about what counts as protected online speech got under way in Jefferson County Monday afternoon.



At issue, the question of whether blogger Alexandria Goddard and members of the online community at the website Prinniefied.com defamed a Steubenville High School athlete and his parents with comments made about the rape allegations against two of the plaintiff's teammates.

The plaintiff was not charged or asked to testify in the rape case; however, he was named regularly in blog postings and related forums about the case.


Last month, the plaintiff and his parents sued Goddard and approximately two dozen "John and Jane Does" who commented on stories about the case using anonymous screen names.

The plaintiffs' attorney said he could identify the anonymous posters by correlating screen shots of the original Prinnified.com site and data preserved by their respective Internet service providers. Without knowing their actual names, subpoenas cannot be issued and the case cannot continue, according to the plaintiff's attorney.

The plaintiffs' attorney claimed the blog and the forum had been moved to an online "host" in Hong Kong.

Judge David Henderson held a hearing Monday about whether to allow the plaintiff's attorney to get that information from several Internet service providers.

After hearing from the plaintiff's and Goddard's attorneys, Henderson took that motion under advisement, agreeing to rule on it as soon as possible.


Henderson did sign an order compelling several Internet service providers to preserve any data that may become evidence in the civil case.

The plaintiffs' attorney was concerned that some providers' policies purge such data after six months.


Goddard, who was not present for Monday's hearing, still has not been served with a copy of the lawsuit, despite what the plaintiff's attorney claims was an exhaustive attempt to locate her at several previous addresses.

The plaintiff's attorney claimed Goddard was trying to evade being served.

Goddard's attorney said she was not avoiding process servers, but declined to tell the court where she is currently living claiming a potential violation of attorney-client privilege.

It has been brought to my attention that a few people are questioning my last blog post about Prinnie being hospitalized.

For the last couple of days twitter feeds from some of the most notorious trolls/bullies on the World Wide Web have blown up informing others that "Prinnie has been hospitalized."