MOUNT VERNON — Miriam St. Jean, the Mount Vernon woman whom local attorney Scott Pullins alleges is cyberstalking him, has filed a counterclaim against the Mount Vernon lawyer in Knox County Common Pleas Court.
In her complaint, St. Jean claims that Pullins wronged her by filing a subpoena in a separate court case for the purpose of using the information he obtained to take legal action against her.
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She alleges that the subpoena in question was issued to the Internet company ECR in December as part of a pending libel case between Pullins and State Rep. Thom Collier, a case in which she was not involved.
The subpoena sought to obtain documents that would identify the names of certain Internet posters on the KnoxPages.com forum, where the lawsuit was being discussed. It included a request for information about a user named curious_mind, the name Pullins claims is being used by St. Jean to “menace” him. In January, Pullins filed for a civil protection order against her.
In her counterclaim, St. Jean admits to using the curious_mind screenname while on the site; however, she claims that Pullins obtained KnoxPages.com user information from ECR “under false pretenses” by pretending that the information was relevant to his libel case against Collier, a case that was suspended/stayed in October due to the filing of a related case in the Ohio Court of Claims.
St. Jean alleges that by filing a subpoena in a case that had been suspended, and using the information to file for a protection order against her, Pullins committed “invasion of privacy,” “abuse of process” and “fraud upon the court.”
She claims the actions were committed with actual malice toward her, and that they have caused her mental suffering and embarrassment, among other problems. She is asking for unspecified compensatory damages and punitive damages in the amount of either $10,000, or three times the amount of compensatory damages awarded.
St. Jean has also filed a motion to have Pullins’ request for a protection order dismissed.