Geoffrey S. Berman, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York announced the arrest today of STUART FINKELSTEIN on charges of mail fraud, aggravated identity theft, false declarations to a court, and obstruction of justice. Specifically, FINKELSTEIN has been charged with stealing the identities of two individuals in order to file hundreds of fraudulent lawsuits pursuant to the Americans with Disabilities Act (“ADA”) that those individuals never authorized. In addition, FINKELSTEIN has been charged with making false declarations and obstructing justice in proceedings in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York.
This adds an entirely new dimention to the whole ADA trolling thing, and for those in the blind community who advocated for HR 620 that bill would not have addressed this because there are already laws which do, as illustrated by this case.
And for the sake of all of us in the accessibility and disability rights spaces, if the evidence against Finkelstein supports a guilty verdict he definitely needs to be made an example of because attorneys like him are giving all of us a bad name.
Mentions