March 27, 2002
Dear Friends,
I have read in amazement Mr. Anthony Mioni's open letter of March 25, 2002 where he accuses me of using a website domain that belongs to the Society of St. John (SSJ) without authorization. In making this reckless charge, Mr. Mioni ignores two key and interrelated points. First, Mr. Mioni makes no distinction between ownership of domain name and ownership of the contents on the website. (I will return to this crucial distinction below.) Second, Mr. Mioni ignores the history of the College website about which I gave a brief account in my initial letter exposing the SSJ's invasion of that website. There I explained that our webmaster, while he was a member of the SSJ, created this website for the College of St. Justin Martyr, but registered it under the SSJ's name, there being no dispute between the two institutions at that time.
When we separated the College from the SSJ due to the SSJ's sexual and financial misconduct, we formally announced our dissociation from the SSJ on the College website on October 14, 2001. Shortly thereafter, the SSJ published on its own website an acknowledgement of the College's separation. That acknowledgement can still be seen on the SSJ website under the "education" section. There it states, ironically, that the SSJ accepts the decision by the College's Board of Directors to dissociate from the SSJ.
If the SSJ thought the College website belonged to it in any meaningful sense of that term, then surely the right time to assert ownership over the website would have been when we announced our separation. If I truly stole the website from the SSJ (as Mr. Mioni comically contends), then surely the SSJ would have cried "thief" and demanded the return of the stolen goods. But for over five months, no such claim was made until Mr. Mioni, who never asked for the return of the "stolen goods," invaded our website last week under orders from his superiors in the SSJ.
Mr. Mioni is now boasting that his actions have been fully vindicated by the attorney for the website host, Gemstream. Nothing could be further from the truth. Here are some questions that Mr. Mioni has conveniently ignored:
Mr. Mioni did not have the password to the College website because he and the SSJ never had anything whatsoever to do with our website. The website was entirely the creation of our webmaster and the officers of the College. As a result of Mr. Mioni's failure to be honest and forthright about these facts with Gemstream, Mr. Mioni was blocked from the website once Gemstream recognized that Mr. Mioni had indeed obtained the password under false pretences. And the March 22, 2002 letter from Gemstream's attorney continues to bar the SSJ from our website.
Gemstream's decision to block Mr. Mioni from further invasion of our website demonstrates that the attorney for Gemstream recognizes the time-honored distinction between "legal title" and "equitable title." That is to say, there is a significant difference between a nominal owner and the real party who has a genuine interest in the property in question. While the SSJ has nominal legal title to the domain name csjm.org, the SSJ has no genuine interest in the College website, other than preventing us from using it to expose the SSJ's misconduct.
Let's consider now the March 22, 2002 letter from the attorney for Gemstream. Mr. Mioni claims that this letter definitively ruled in favor of the SSJ. Yet the letter simply states what I previously acknowledged in my initial letter exposing the Society's invasion, namely, that the domain name was registered to the SSJ. This is nothing new. The letter from Gemstream's attorney, however, does not rule on the rightful ownership of the information contained on that site, the very information that Mr. Mioni vandalized. Indeed, the letter from Gemstream's attorney states:
"As a result of the apparent, irreconcilable differences between the parties to this matter, and of the inability of Gemstream to make a clear, legal determination as to the rightful ownership of certain proprietary information contained on the site, effective immediately Gemstream will deny access to the hosting service by both the Society of St. John and the College of St. Justin Martyr. Such access will be granted only upon presentation to Gemstream of a valid order of court having jurisdiction over this matter or a signed agreement between the parties."
Clearly Gemstream's ruling continues to deny the SSJ access to the College website that Mr. Mioni claims belongs to the SSJ. In my telephone conversation on March 26, 2002 with the attorney for Gemstream, he acknowledged that the College had a claim—under the "equitable title" theory—to the content on the website, which is why the website was not simply turned over to the SSJ as the registered owner of the domain. Thus, Mr. Mioni's "victory cry" is quite hollow and misleading. We do not deny that the domain name was registered to the SSJ, but we continue to insist that the content of the website belongs to the College.
Hence, Mr. Mioni's claim that he had the authority to remove any part of the College website entirely at his discretion was false. The content of the College website does not belong to him, which is why Gemstream continues to deny him and the SSJ access. Thus we maintain that Mr. Mioni did indeed vandalize and destroy parts of our website, despite his insistence that he merely "removed" something distasteful to him. We are confident that our lawsuit against the SSJ will recognize our just claims, and that the SSJ and Mr. Mioni will be punished for their interference. We will therefore leave the rest of Mr. Mioni's fallacious claims to be addressed in court.
We feel no shame in admitting that we were completely unaware of the significance of domain name registration. Our ignorance of these matters, and our fundamental trust in what we took to be a legitimate association of priests, left us vulnerable to the shrewd and unethical maneuverings of Mr. Mioni and the SSJ. Mr. Mioni and the SSJ are the ones who should be ashamed. Above all else, Mr. Mioni should blush for stating that he "took meticulous care to ensure that every procedure was followed so that no one's rights would be violated either legally or ethically." If Mr. Mioni had even the slightest concern to act ethically, he would have made a simple phone call to one of the officers of the College and informed us of the SSJ's nominal title to the domain name csjm.org. Instead, Mr. Mioni deceived Gemstream and destroyed College property. And, although he has denied reading our private correspondence, Mr. Mioni has yet to explain why he found it necessary to re-route our emails.
In the conclusion to his open letter, Mr. Mioni broadens the scope of his complaints against me by claiming that my exposure of the SSJ's sexual and financial misconduct involved disseminating misinformation with a "total disregard for truth." Yet earlier in his letter Mr. Mioni states that he no longer even reads my emails. Perhaps Mr. Mioni can explain how he knows my emails exhibit a "total disregard for truth" when he himself claims he has not read what I have written. Which is it, Mr. Mioni? Either you have read my emails and find them to be false, or you did not read them and therefore cannot possibly judge their veracity.
Obviously Mr. Mioni has been reading my emails or else he would not have responded at such length to my latest one. And since he claims my emails exhibit a "total disregard for truth," I encourage him, for the record, to set forth the specific instances where my accusations against the sexual predators in the SSJ are false. Since Mr. Mioni's relationship with Fr. Urrutigoity and other members of the SSJ goes back to his days at the Society of St. Pius X seminary in Winona, I am sure it would be revealing to hear what Mr. Mioni has to say, assuming he has any regard for the truth.
Sincerely,
Dr. Jeffrey M. Bond
President
College of St. Justin Martyr
142 Market Road
Greeley, PA 18425
570/685-5945
jmb@ltis.net
www.saintjustinmartyr.org
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