L: ORIGINAL Approved; SHEELSWETT Assistant United States Attorney Before: THE HONORABLE BARBARA C. MOSES United States Magistrate Jud Southern District COMPLAINT UNITED STATES OF AMERICA Violations Of v. 18 U.S.C. 505, 371; and 2 MI CHAEL ARNSTE IN . COUNTY OF OFFENSE Defendant. NEW YORK .. SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF NEW YORK, SS. MAXINE VALES, being duly sworn, deposes and says that he is a Deputy United States Marshal with the United States Marshals Service and charges as follows: COUNT ONE (Forgery of a Judge's Signature) 1. Between on or about February 20, 2014 and on or about October 22, 2014, in the Southern District of New York and. elsewhere, MICHAEL ARNSTEIN, the defendant, willfully and knowingly forged the signature of a judge, register, and other officer of any court of the United States, and of any Territory' thereof, and forged and counterfeited the seal of any such court, and knowingly concurred in using any such forged or counterfeit signature and seal, for the purpose of authenticating any proceeding and document, and tendered in evidence any such proceeding and document with a false and counterfeit signature of any such judge, register, and other officer, and a false and counterfeit seal of the court, subscribed and attached thereto, knowing such signature and.seal to be false and counterfeit, to wit, ARNSTEIN forged the Eugnature of a United States District Judge in the United States Eustrict Court for the Southern District of New York and.affixed. ature to a counterfeit court order that was si . forged search engine* to de-index search results from an interns (Title 18, United States Code, Sections 505 and 2.) COUNT TWO (Forgery of a Judge?s Signature) 2. Between.on or about November 21, 2014 and onkor d. about December 1, 2014, in the Southern District of New Yor* an. elsewhere, MICHAEL ARNSTEIN, the defendant, willfully and knowingly forged the signature of a judge, register, and other? officer of any court of the'United States, and of any Territory" thereof, and forged and counterfeited the seal of any such. court, and knowingly concurred in using any suCh forged or counterfeit signature and seal, for the purpose of . authenticating any proceeding and document, and tendered in. evidence any such proceeding and document with a false and counterfeit signature of any such judge, register, and other officer, and a false and counterfeit seal of the court, subscribed and attached thereto, knowing such signature and seal to be false and counterfeit, to wit, ARNSTEIN forged the signature of a United States District Judge in the United Statema [ostrict Court for the Southern District of New York and affixed, such forged signature to a counterfeit court order that was used. to de~index search results from an internet search engine. (Title 18, United States Code, Sections 505 and 2.) COUNT THREE (Conspiracy to Forge a Judge's Signature) 3. From at least in or about February 2014 upatr)anni including in or about February 2017, in the Southern District.c?f New York and elsewhere, MICHAEL ARNSTEIN, the defendant, and others known and unknown, willfully and knowingly did combine, conspire, confederate, and agree together and with each other'ttn forge a judge's signature, in Violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 505. 4. It was a part and an object of the conspiracy that MICHAEL.ARNSTEIN, the defendant, and others known and. unknown, willfully and knowingly, would and did forge the Signature of a judge, register, and other officer of any court of the United States, and of any Territory thereof, and forged and counterfeited the seal of any such court, and knowingly" tcmcurred in using any such forged or counterfeit signature and seal, for the purpose of authenticating any proceeding and document, and tendered in evidence any such proceeding and document with a false and counterfeit signature of any such. . judge, register, and other officer, and a false and counterfeit seal of the court, subscribed and attached thereto, knoWing such. signature and seal to be false and counterfeit, in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 505. Overt Acts In furtherance of the conspiracy and to effect the following overt acts, among uthern District of New York and the illegal object thereof, others, were committed in the So elsewhere: 2014, MICHAEL ARNSTEIN, the Southern District of a counterfeit e1.On or about October 3, the defendant, emailed an individual in New York and instructed that individual to creat judicial order by digitally altering a genuine judicial order. 13.0n or about October 22, 2014, MICHAEL ARNSTEIN, the defendant, emailed a copy of a counterfeit judicial order to (?Google?) and requested that Google de?index Google, Inc. contained in the counterfeit Uniform Resource Locators order. (Title 18, United States Code, Section 371.) The bases for my knowledge and for the foregoing charges are, in part, as follows: 6. I am a Deputy United States Marshal with the USMS and have been so employed for approximately six years. This affidavit is based upon my personal participation in the investigation of this matter, as well as on my conversations with other law enforcement officers and my examination of documents, reports, and records. Because this affidavit is being submitted for the limited purpose of establishing probable cause, it does not include all the facts I have learned during the investigation. Where the contents of documents or the actions, statements, or conversations of others are reported herein, they are reported in substance and in part, except where otherwise indicated. Overview of the Defendantjs Forgery Scheme (3 7. As set forth more fully below, in or about ctober 2012, MICHAEL ARNSTEIN, the defendant, obtained a the United States District Court in the Southern District of New York, and then used this judicial order to create counterfeit orders. In order to suppress negative information relating to his business, ARNSTEIN subsequently provided these counterfeit orders to internet search engines, including Google, to request that the internet search engines remove from their search results websrtes that were identified as defamatory in the counterfeit orders. genuine judicial order from Background_on the Counterfeit Orders 8. Based on my review of publicly available documents, and my conversations with other law enforcement officers and other individuals, I have learned, in substance and in part, the following: a. MICHAEL.ARNSTEIN, the defendant, is the Chief Executive Officer and owner of a company located in Manhattan, New York, that principally sells sapphires and sapphire jewelry (the Company"): b. On or about July 22, 2011, the ARNSTEIN Company filed a civil complaint against an individual (?Civil Defendant-2,? and Defendant?1?) and a company (?Civil collectively, the ?Civil Defendants"), in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York (the ?Civil Action"). On or about October 17, 2011, the ARNSTEIN Company filed an amended complaint (the ?Amended Complaint") against the Civil Defendants, alleging, inter alia, a claim of defamation under New York law. The Amended Complaint sought damages, attorney's fees and costs, and any other relief the court deemed just and equitable. The case was assigned to the Honorable Alison J. Nathan in or about February 2012. c. Civil Defendantil appeared pro se on or about March 20, 2012. Civil Defendant-l subsequently entered into a settlement with the ARNSTEIN Company. Civil Defendant?2 failed to appear in the Civil Action, and on or about October 26, 2012, Judge Nathan entered an Order for Default Judgment (the ?Default Judgment Order?) against Civil Defendant?2. The Default Judgment Order enjoined Civil Defendant?2 from posting defamatory reviews of the ARNSTEIN Company online and ordered Civil Defendant?2 to take down 54 URLs, which are essentially the internet addresses for websites, that contained purportedly defamatory information regarding the ARNSTEIN Company. The Default Judgment Order was signed by Judge Nathan. On or about November 9, 2012, Judge Nathan closed the Civil Action. The Forgery of. taeDeisulJ: ement Omar 9. Based on my review of documents obtained from Google, I have learned, in substance and in part, the follow1ng: a. The email account marnstein?gmail.com (?Email Account~l?) is registered to an individual named ?Michael.Arnstein." The user of Email Account?1 has accessed Email Account?l from an IP address associated with the ARNSTEIN Company?s Manhattan office. In addition, MICHAEL ARNSTEIN, the defendant, identifies himself in emails sent from Email Account? 1. b. The email account Company].com (?Email is registered to an individual named ?Michael Arnstein." The user of Email.Account?2 has accessed Email Account?2 from an IP address associated with the ARNSTEIN Company's Manhattan address. In addition, the recovery email address for Email.Account?2 is Email.Account-l. MICHAEL ARNSTEIN, the defendant, identifies himself in emails sent from. Email Account?2. c. Accordingly, it appears that both Email Account?1 and Email.Account?2 are controlled and used by the same person, MICHAEL.ARNSTEIN, the defendant. d. Google has a policy of ?de?indexing," or' removing from its search results, websites that have been identified as defamatory by court order. e. On or about July 16, 2014, MICHAEL ARNSTEIN, the defendant, sent an email to a third party, in which he said; bullshit: if I could do it all over again I would have found another court order injunction for removal of links (probably something that can. be found online pretty easily) made changes in photoshop to show the links that I wanted removed and then sent to ?removals@google.com' as a showing the court order docket number, the judges [sic] signature but with the new links put in. google isn?t checking this stuff; that?s the bottom line b/c I spent $30,000 fuckin thousand dollars and nearly 2 fuckin years to do what legit could have been done for about 6 hours of searching and photoshop by a guy for $200., all in ONE DAYW. E. On or about February 20, 2014, ARNSTEIN sent an email from Email.Account?2 to an employee in the ARNSTEIN tan office (?Employee?1") with the subject line, send back the updated file please.? dd these below pricescope Company?s Manhat ?update to injunction an The email stated, ?please a and then listed two URLs. On or about May 22, 2014, ARNSTEIN sent an ?Please make these bject line, The email listed four ?These ARNSTEIN, stating, link reviews are very bad, so what do d0? . - . links in PDF as usual?" ARNSTEIN replied Should i put just those by email, ?yes add them to the last you made that had only 1 but it only works about link. hopefully google will remove them, 25% of the time.? g. email to Employee?1 with the su into a court order injunction file. URLs. Employee?l responded by email to On or about October 3, 2014, ARNSTEIN stating, ?can you send me a new court order injunction with only these links please (change the stamp date to Sept 24 2014 thanks!? The email listed six URLs (?Six ployee?l responded, ?here is the court injunction?03 as requested and please let me know if you want me to change anything else on it.? 2014, Google On or about October 22, received an email from Email Account-1. The email was submitted. to Google in support of a request to have Google de-index: certain URLs relating to the ARNSTEIN Company. .Attached to the ?Court Injunction_03," which appeared email was a file labeled to be an ?Order for Default Judgment,? purportedly signed by' Judge Nathan in the Civil Action (?Counterfeit Orderel?). Counterfeit Order?l resembled the Default Judgment Order in its language and layout except in two respects. First, the genuine Default Judgment Order was dated October 26, 2012, while Counterfeit Order?1 was dated September 24, 2014, almost two Second, Counterfeit h. emailed Employee?1, i. Order?1 listed the relating to the ARNSTEIN Company, none of defamatory informatio which were included among the 54 URLs listed in the genuine Default Judgment Order. On or about November 19, 2014, Google j. responded to Email.Account-1, saying: Thanks for reaching out to us. It is Google?r policy to voluntarily remove content pursuant to a court order directed at a third party, when appropriate. In accordance with this policy, we have removed the following URL (8) from our Google . com search results: [Six . k. On or about November 21, 2014, ARNSTEIN forwarded this email to Employee-1, adding, ?Hey [Employee-l] .. Good news, many of the links have been removed from the work you put into that PDF. There are links that are almost the same that have been created from the same website that is coming up high now. Can you add the following links to the doc and send it back to me again please. change the date to October 30th too. The email then listed six additional URLs (?Six . 1. On or about November 30, sent an email to Employee?1 with the subject line, ?did you get my email request on the update?" On or about December 1, 2014, Employee?1 responded, almost finished it on last week Friday and now this morning I finished it so here is the edited Court injunction and.please let me know if you want me to change anything else on itabout December 1, 2014, Email Account? 1 sent an email to Google that contained a counterfeit order dated October 30, 2014 (?Counterfeit Counterfeit Order?2 listed Six as URLs containing allegedly defamatory information. n. On or about December 18, 2014, Google responded to Email Account?1, stating that it would.de?ir?ko< certain of the Six from its search results ?pursuant.tx>ea court order directed at a third party.? 0. Between on or about January 19, 2015 and on or about February 10, 2017, Google received at least ten more emails in support of requests to de?index URLs relating to the ARNSTEIN Company. Attached to these emails were counterfeit orders similar to Counterfeit Order?1 and Counterfeit Order?2 that is, default judgment orders that resemble the genuine I Default Judgment Order, including the purported signature of Judge Nathan, but bearing different dates and listing different purportedly defamatory URLs (collectively, with Counterfeit Order~2, the ?Counterfeit Orders?) Many of the URLs listed in the Counterfeit I the Civil Defendants. . P. The Counterf I1 ?filed" 1n the Southern 1993 the follOWing dates: september 24: 2014, October 30, 2014, NMember 28, 201:31 December 22, January 15,- 2015, May 5 2015! July 5, 2015,r August 7, 2015, January 8, 2016, February! 15! 2016: and March 12 2016. I have reviewed the ECF docket sheet in the ClVil Action and there are any of those dates. Judge Nathan has confirmed that she did not issue the Counterfeit Orders. Cl- On or about September 4 2014 MICHAEL ARNSTEZZN, the defend ant, sent an email to a third party, in which he said: II?think you should.take legal advice with a grain (If salt. I spent 100k on lawyers to get a court cunhar injunction to have things removed from ISOogle and.YOutube, only to photoshop the