Wilomn said:
Blackmail is the wrong word, as was already pointed out.
Joe Capone became fairly heavily invested in a number of websites and was very, very free with gifts of all sorts. The car thing mentioned earlier is a good example, he was handing animals out to individuals who he was proposing to do business with as if they were nothing and I do not doubt that there is an extensive list of other favors and gifts that were thrown around.
While it's evident that, after his actions had caused a large number of people to question the quality of his character, he twisted those investments and gifts to his own advantage when he could... and may even have threatened to attempt to publically twist the nature of the initial gifts- blackmail or bribery (as was also mentioned) would indicate that there was some wrongdoing on the part of the reccievers. This is simply not the case.
When someone approaches another person with proposals for long term business relations and ads personal favors into the mix, it may be seen as greasing things up, but it's certainly not an unethical practice to give or reccieve favors under the circumstances. "I'd like to sponser your _____ forum on ______.com, I have a lot of _____ to sell and think the relationship could benefit us both. Hey, do you like _____? I have some extra hatchlings if you'd like a few." is hardly a bribe and is hardly blackmail.
Three things have been mentioned by Rick in relation to the webmaster of Reptileauctions in what seemed to be a thinly veiled attempt to discredit the man. Jeff is a buddy of mine- not a business associate, not a family member or a partner, just a guy who I occassionally like to shoot the shit with about animals. When MKR became involved with reptileauctions and reptileforums, Joe's reputation was still positive. The price drop (which I will always maintain was driven by market forces, the personal animosity came later) hadn't happened yet. Joe hadn't gone and made an ass out of himself anywhere, he was just one half of an up and coming business that was looking to advertise. Jeff was excited about a lot of the MKR plans- some of which clearly got twisted a little bit; Wes was going to be a regular feature on the ball forums answering all those "why won't it eat" questions, MKR was going to produce short (ha!) video segments about various topics like an introduction to mendelian genetics, sexing, incubation, tease feeding and so on, there was some signifigant ad money coming into the websites, some animals were going to be provided for contests and giveaways (Another subject Rick has hinted around a lie about- there was some discussion about weather *volunteer* forum and chat mods could *enter* the contest, absolutely nothing about "fixing" it) and the hope was that the traffic increase could attract other advertisers.
Simultaneous to all this good stuff happening, Joe was throwing gifts around. He gave Jeff a couple animals and bought a swingset kit for Jeff's kids. It was not, based on the timeline for Joe's complete personality meltdown and public relations disaster, a situation where the freebies were conditional. It was never "Let Spokanelizardlady back on reptibid AND I'll give you some animals." since the gifts were all given relatively early in the relationship- favors for a new partner, not bribes to accomplish some malevolent goal. The timeline, as ever, is important in understanding the MKR crapsplosion.
When MKR took a downhill turn based on Joe's actions and Joe's attitude and Joe's mouth- Jeff stopped talking about the relatipnship between MKR and the reptileauctions web network. 'cause Jeff's a classy, honest, upstanding kind of guy, he'd brag to a buddy when things are going well and he's excited about new plans and big goings on but he's not the type who'd take a problem situation and gossip. Given what I know of the character of the two individuals though, I'd conjecture that Joe threatened to pull his advertising if he didn't get his own way about a few things and I'd conjecture that, for whatever reason, the site owner probably made the call above his webmaster. I'd also conjecture- and this is evidenced by the absolute garbage Rick was spewing earlier- that Joe probably threatened to publically twist the nature of the things he gave as gifts. Rick certainly tried to anyway.
MKR never ripped anyone off. Sounds like Rick has never ripped anyone off either. Preselling and reselling happen all the time, the middleman is a fairly big portion of the money going back and forth within the reptile industry and there's nothing inherently wrong with that by any stretch. There's some truth to the contradictions of MKR portraying themselves as breeders while simultaneously jobbing animals, but since they never specifically claimed to produce every animal they sold, it gets into semantics about lies of omission. Joe Capone is still a very very slimey excuse for a human being and for some people, it'd be enough to avoid him. For some others, it'd be enough to avoid anyone who ends up guilty by association. There are shades of gray though and everyone's going to have to choose their own degree of seperation when the association becomes signifigant enough to draw a line and avoid doing business. A formal partnership is a long way away from buying animals to resell which is also a long way from just buying an animal. Some people think Wes is permanantly tainted by the partnership, or have condemned reptileclassifieds (and it's owner, webmaster and volunteer staff) for their association and a few people have made claims indicating that they feel anyone who ever bought an animal from 'em is suddenly in the wrong for having done so.
Me... I believe in timelines and muteable relationships and reccognize that hindsight shouldn't be used to characterize someone's motivation or condemn them for innocent mistakes. Shades of gray all over the place. Rick certainly seems to be doing a little more than just reselling animals though and far more importantly his conduct and attempt to drag a good guy through the mud to move the spotlight off himself have me sticking a checkmark in the "bad guy" column.
