CoJ Case 062

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Chamber of Justice

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DB vs AnthonyH, #15878 was the sixty-second case tried by the Chamber of Justice. The sitting Justicar was Dacien Victae, the Left Hand of Justice was Ciara Tarentae, and the Right Hand of Justice was Kalan Amak.

Basic Case Information

Defendant

• AnthonyH, #15878

Charges

• Seven counts: Violation of Covenant section 7.06(e) - Cloning - Plea of Not Guilty
• One count: Violation of Covenant section 7.06(j) - False Statements - Plea of Not Guilty

Verdict

• GUILTY as to all charges

Sentence

• Permanent Expulsion

Related News Post

The Chamber of Justice, upon conclusion of an investigation, issued the following charges against AnthonyH:

• Seven counts: Violation of Covenant section 7.06(e) - Cloning - AnthonyH has created seven clone accounts from the same IP address (213.73.222.241) or utilizing the same email accounts:
  • AnthonyH (original), Anthony Q'Dari, Fox, .fox, Groudo, Majoras, Amelia, Umi Traads
  • This is a direct violation of Covenant section 7.06(e) which states members may not have more than one persona in a single household or on a single connection without permission from the Justicar.
• One count: Violation of Covenant section 7.06(j) - False Statements - After each new account was created, either the Right Hand of Justice (Farrin Xies Tarentae) or the Justicar contacted AnthonyH in regards to the accounts. On January 13, the Justicar questioned AnthonyH via Telegram about the ownership of the suspected clone accounts. AnthonyH’s response for each new account was different. He claimed that AnthonyH was his brother, Majoras was a friend, and that Groudo and Q’Dari were his personal accounts. He claimed to have no knowledge of the Fox or .fox accounts.

The member was provided sufficient counsel from the Left Hand of Justice and was made aware of his rights under the Covenant. Due to the nature of the charges, the possible penalties exceeded a one-grade Equite demotion, a Letter of Reprimand, one year probation, or a combination of the above. Therefore, pursuant to Cov. 7.03(i), he was presented with a choice of Trial by Jury or Trial by Justicar. The member was informed that he would be able to present evidence in his defense, and that the Justicar would consider and weigh the evidence before him without presumption of guilt. The member further notified that he would have the right to see any evidence to be presented by the Right Hand of Justice, and that he would be able to submit written arguments to rebut the charges and evidence presented unless he failed to enter a plea.

Given the choice of proceeding to a trial or admitting guilt to the charges, and having been warned by the Left Hand of Justice about the consequences of not participating in the trial, AnthonyH chose not to enter to plea or elect a trial type. The Chamber of Justice therefore entered a default plea of not guilty and immediately initiated a Trial by Justicar. Pursuant to Cov. 7.03(g)(iii), by failing to enter a plea the Defendant waived his right to submit evidence or argument on his behalf at trial.

Upon consideration of all evidence available to the Chamber and the arguments presented by the Prosecution, the Justicar finds the Defendant GUILTY of all charges.

The sentence for the member is as follows:

• DELETION of all clone dossiers;
• LETTER OF REPRIMAND permanently applied to the member’s primary dossier;
• PERMANENT BAN ON IP SHARING for AnthonyH. No other member will be allowed to join from the same IP address;
• Recommended sentence: EXPULSION.

JUSTICE IS SERVED.

Signed and sealed in Justice,
Dacien Victae
Justicar of the Dark Jedi Brotherhood

Justicar's Opinion

This is an unusual case for several reasons. First, it is a rare event in the modern history of the Dark Jedi Brotherhood for a single person to create so many dossiers -- at least eight, as of the date of charging. Second, it is unusual for serial cloners to do essentially nothing with their accounts. As will be detailed below, this saga began at the end of 2019 and stretched through March 2020. During that time, AnthonyH created eight dossiers that ended up in more than half of the Clans, and joined multiple DJB chat channels, yet he participated in zero competitions and took only three SA courses across all of the dossiers.

He was confronted multiple times by the Chamber of Justice and always maintained that the various accounts were either friends or family, or had been created because he somehow lost access to his email address or forgot his password. He was notified more than once that he could not have multiple dossiers, yet he continued to sign up new accounts.

Although the Covenant permits the Justicar to order the deletion of suspected clone accounts within six months of their creation, levying charges and trying the person behind the clones remains the only way to address the root problem of a member who consistently flaunts the rules of this club.

Facts

AnthonyH joined the Dark Jedi Brotherhood on December 26​ 2019 as AnthonyH (anthonyhoekstra545@gmail.com).

On January 2, he registered a second account, Anthony Q’Dari, using the email address “fnaffoxy545@gmail.com.” The IP address used for registering Q’Dari, 213.127.87.146, was used by AnthonyH at 9:08am and then used to register the Q’Dari account immediately afterwards at 9:12am. The Justicar addressed this issue with Anthony who then admitted Q’Dari was indeed his, leading to its subsequent deletion.

Thereafter, on January 3, 2020 he created two new dossiers for .fox (rafaelspijkerman.prive@gmail.com) and Fox (darthfox79@gmail.com). The DJB website sent a report to the Chamber of Justice indicating that there was possible clone activity and, per Chamber policy, the Right Hand of Justice reached out to both members and sought an explanation for sharing an IP address (213.73.222.241). Anthony claimed to the Justicar that he did not know not know who .fox or Fox were.

Following that, on 12 January 2020 Anthony logged off the DJB website at 7:28 AM site time. At 7:32 that same day an account was created from the same IP address as AnthonyH under the name Majoras (freddyfuntime619@gmail.com). At 7:36 that same day, a new dossier for Groudo (anthonyh54777@gmail.com) was created, also from the same IP address. When confronted by the Justicar, Anthony claimed that Majoras was a friend and that Groudo was his account.

On February 19, 2020, Anthony registered a new account named Amelia (ccommanderwolffe3636@gmail.com) from the same IP address as the other accounts. As with the .fox and Fox accounts, Anthony claimed to have no knowledge of this account, despite the fact that it came from the same IP address of his other accounts.

Finally, on March 20​ , 2020, Anthony created the account Umi Traads using the same IP and email address (fnaffoxy545@gmail.com) as the deleted account Anthony Q’Dari despite having previously been asked by the Justicar to choose between keeping the Q’Dari account and the Groudo account. Anthony claimed to the Right Hand of Justice that he lost access to his anthonyhoekstra545@gmail.com address as well as the password to his AnthonyH account, and therefore created a new account.

Analysis

Cloning is unique among this club’s prohibitions. It is at once a common, innocent occurrence handled as a routine administrative manner without serious consequence, but it is also one of the most serious offenses in the Covenant. Cloning is the ​only offense for which the typical burden of proof shifts from the prosecution to the defense: the Covenant creates a rebuttable presumption that dossiers flagged as clones are, in fact, clones, and the Defendant must prove by a preponderance of the evidence that multiple people inhabit those dossiers.

Clone accounts are treated this way because they are easy to create and pose a significant threat to the competitive and administrative integrity of the club. Despite those risks, we give potential clones the benefit of the doubt and almost always accept reasonable explanations -- members who simply explain that their friend/brother/whoever used their computer to join are allowed to continue on without any further action, as long as they do not later give the Chamber reason to doubt their explanations. Similarly, new and returning members sometimes create multiple accounts because they don’t realize it’s against our rules, have forgotten their old accounts, lost old email addresses, or even forgotten that they ever joined in the first place. Nearly all of these situations are resolved without difficulty.

As the Chamber has previously noted in ​DB v. Kadrol Hauen/Fallitar​, 056 DB, cloning charges are almost always based on circumstantial evidence. The so-called “badges of cloning” that the Chamber considers in charging decisions include, but are not necessarily limit to:

• Members share the same IP address.
• IP address sharing does not vary.
• Members log in and out of the website from one dossier to another quickly or always near the same time.
• One dossier appears to have “dominance” over the other dossier.
• One member wins the competitions of the other member.
• Common speaking traits or other characteristics.
• Members do not appear separately on communication channels.
• Other connections that may appear between the dossiers.

This case raised several red flags. AnthonyH has created seven clone accounts over a period of three months using the same IP and email addresses. He has used email addresses with key similarities, including The name “Anthony,” the number “545,” and variations of “fox” or “foxy”. Moreover, the (admittedly limited) login patterns of the accounts show logging and out within minutes from the same address. Only one of the connected accounts has a presence on Telegram: AnthonyH, using the name “Anthony Hoekstra”.

While it is common for users on mobile devices to share dynamic IP addresses and have no relationship at all, it is extremely unlikely for users to share a static IP address like the one shared by .fox, Fox, Amelia, Groudo, Majoras, AnthonyH, and Anthony Q’dari. It is even less likely that users sharing a static IP would have no knowledge of other club members using the same IP address, as they would be sharing the same device.

Finally, AnthonyH’s claim that his “brother” created the original AnthonyH account with the email address “anthonyhoekstra545@gmail.com” strains credulity and bears a remarkable similarity to the Defendant’s claim in 056 DB that Kadrol’s “friend” Fallitar used Kadrol’s email address because he did not want to receive spam email.

Ultimately, the total accumulated circumstantial evidence in this case makes a very strong case that all or at least most of these accounts belong to a single person. Because AnthonyH waived his right to submit evidence or argument during the trial, he was unable to meet his burden of providing by a preponderance of the evidence that separate individuals inhabit these accounts. As such, the Chamber is left with no alternative but the find him GUILTY of seven counts of cloning.

As for the charge of False Statements, it follows directly from the various excuses AnthonyH made to the Chamber during the investigation. As explained above, the Chamber finds AnthonyH’s explanations implausible at best. Because the Chamber has concluded that AnthonyH created all eight of the accounts at issue, it must necessarily conclude that he lied to the Chamber during the course of the investigation. As such, he is also GUILTY of making False Statements during an official investigation.

Sentencing

This case presents a unique sentencing challenge. AnthonyH has done next to nothing in the club ​except create new accounts. The highest rank attained by any of the dossiers is Novice. The common punishments of demotion or loss of medals are almost meaningless in this context. They also fail to get at the core of the problem: AnthonyH is a serial cloner. While we can purge his existing clones and delete any new ones he may make in the future, only one punishment will permit the Chamber to impose serious obstacles to his joining: expulsion.

Expelling a member is the most serious punishment the Dark Jedi Brotherhood can impose, and it is rarely used. Most cloning cases do not require it, but the Chamber believes that this one does: it will allow the deletion of ​all of AnthonyH’s accounts and the imposition of a total ban on creation or login from IP addresses associated with his accounts. No other measure will be effective.

Given the grave nature of this proposed punishment, the Covenant requires that the Justicar convene an Expulsion Jury composed of five randomly selected equites and elders and one sitting member of the Dark Council. The Expulsion Jury will review the evidence and this opinion, and will also receive briefing from the Right and Left Hands of Justice for and against expulsion, respectively.

If the Expulsion Jury votes in favor of expulsion by at least five out of six jurors, AnthonyH will be expelled from the Dark Jedi Brotherhood. If the Expulsion Jury does not vote for expulsion, the alternate sentence announced in the Verdict will be imposed.

Sentencing is held in abeyance pending a vote by the Expulsion Jury.

Jury Result

The Justicar convened an Expulsion Jury of six active equites and elders, led by a sitting member of the Dark Council, instructed the Jury in its duties, and provided a copy of all evidence, this Verdict and Opinion, and sentencing briefs written by the Right and Left Hands.

At the conclusion of the Jury’s deliberation, it returned a unanimous vote in support of expulsion. As such, AnthonyH is hereby permanently expelled from the Dark Jedi Brotherhood.

Verily,
Dacien Victae
Justicar of the Dark Jedi Brotherhood