Ocean Marketing's Paul Christoforo says his former client iControl Enterprises asked him to take on an alternative identity named "Tom" so he could keep working for them even after his name was marred by a PR firestorm last year.
Christoforo, who became entangled in an Internet fiasco after a customer service spat revolving around iControl's Avenger Controller went public last December, has filed a lawsuit against his former client for "defamation of character." Christoforo told Kotaku that iControl, also known as N-Control, has been "preventing [him] from making a living by lying about things that never happened."
Documented in the lawsuit, which Christoforo's representative sent Kotaku last night, are a series of text messages allegedly sent by iControl's David Kotkin and Bruce Cutler. The lawsuit reads:
CUTLER originally attempted to distance the company from Plaintiff', but requested that Plaintiff create a fake identity so he could still work for ÍCONTROL in a series of text messages:
"Well the only way to spin it out good is for the company to say you were a renegade that got away . _ . yada yada." (27 December 2011, 13:34) (original formatting).
"Let the old ‘Paul' fade away and rebrand a new voice. Call yourself TOM and be nice this time. LOL. Well we need a blood letting on the ‘PAUL' and a retraction from Founder . . . . And apology bs. [sic] And a rebirth. Then spin spin [sic]" (27 December 201], 13:34.)
"You will win this with the Sweet Tom at Avenger Voice who is sorry about ‘Paul's actions' but we are a great bla bla bla but we are a great bla bla bla company [sic]" (27 December 2011, 13:52.)
"You MUST come out public Killing OCEAN/Paul future association with Avenger!! Become someone new. For real. spin this public ok Tom? Paul is dead to me now. Ok Tom'?" (27 December 201 1, 13:58.)
We've reached out to iControl for comment and will update should they respond.
Update: iControl's Kotkin has sent Kotaku a statement.
"Bogus allegations on behalf of Paul Christoforo will be vigorously defended," he said in an e-mail. "The blatant attempt to coerce me to settle these bogus claims by Mr. Christoforo will be fruitless. Communicating with Paul while he holds your website keys doesn't make for communication that always reflect the truth. Paul hacked into my email by guessing the answers to some security questions. To say these communications were compromised in an understatement."
Here's Christoforo's court case in its entirety: