He continues to be free to speak about his own personal business dealings with Monex.
Monex, which denies wrongdoing, has argued in court that the web site cost it considerable business.
Indeed, Monex, founded by the Caribini family in 1967, is no stranger to bad notices.
Monex of Newport Beach, Calif. sells the same for 25 cents per ounce per month.
Monex immediately cried foul, firing Spondello and suing him in California state court (Spondello has sued right back).
But Selna accepted Monex's argument that the Gilliams were engaged not in protected activities but in unprotected attempted extortion.
Founded in 1967 by Louis Carabini, Monex has a long and contentious history.
The judge blocked a long list of specific assertions casting aspersions on Monex, its operations and its compliance with regulatory rules.
The Gilliams say they went to Monex looking for a safe investment but ended up investing in silver with money borrowed from Monex.
Monex lawyers immediately filed a new pleading claiming Selna had made a "clerical mistake" by omitting the prohibitions and asking that they be reinstated.
The feds--seemingly as outraged as Monex was when it learned of the Spondello documents--quickly filed an appeal with the supervising jurist, U.S. District Judge James V.
The tax collection case dates back to the 1990s when the IRS vetoed Monex's use of a tax shelter involving London Metal Exchange straddle transactions.
For example, he would be free to publicize the true fact that Monex currently has an F rating from the Better Business Bureau, which the agency says connotes unreliability.
In negotiations, Monex said it would agree to a formal judicial vindication of Pribe, so long as the estimated 25, 000 pages in the 25 boxes were returned to Monex.
In an interview, Jason Gilliam told Forbes he was simply negotiating on behalf of other aggrieved Monex customers and that the money demand was an attempt to settle legitimate claims without litigation.
In a striking reversal a California federal judge has canceled his earlier order prohibiting an Orange County man from making negative statements, whether "true or false, " about Monex, the controversial precious metals dealer suing him for attempted extortion.
That case has taken a strange turn with revelations that now ex-Monex employee Vincent A. Spondello became an informant and turned over 25 boxes of old company records to the IRS. Monex says it has done nothing wrong.
Nor could the Gilliams publicize how the IRS is building its tax case against Monex with the help of informant Vincent A. Spondello, who provided 25 boxes of old company records that are the subject of a court fight.
Selna ruled the Gilliams could not show they had an actual, good faith intention to sue--which might negate the attempted extortion claim--especially after Jason admitted he got most of the 234 names from an internal Monex document and had not spoken to them.
Monex moved to block the government's use of the tens of thousands of pages, focusing on the fact that Spondello was still a Monex employee both when he took the documents and when he gave them to the IRS. Lawyer ethics and IRS administrative rules might restrict the government's ablity to employ the material against Monex.
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