Version 2.0 and later by dharland@telebyte.com (Hardrock Llewynyth)
Version 1.1 by edmcdo01@starbase.spd.louisville.edu (Follower of the Clawed
Albino) aka Windigo the Feral (NYAR!)
Version 1.0 by: peter@bonkers.taronga.com (Peter da Silva)
Credits: Well, the primary credit goes to Peter da Silva for writing the
thing in the first place; and to Windigo the Feral for providing most of
the more current info, and keeping me up on my mistakes :)
Thanks to Kirt Kraeuter for digging up the official court records on Grubor's
disbarrment.
And, of course, credit goes to all the rest who have gone through the trouble
of digging up the truth on John Grubor.
Thanks also to Stephanie da Silva for providing the info on Grubor's one
existing court case.
Thanks to Lee S. Bumgarner; Bruce Tindall; Kristen M. Dunn; Kelly T. Conlon;
Tim Skirvin; and anyone who's name i have forgotten; for providing up-to-date
info and killfiles, clarifying some points, and helping me improve
readability.
Thanks, finally, to all those who have had to put up with Grubor's
bullshit.
I am continuously updating the FAQ to keep up with the myriad of current
developments; but this isn't easy, and the FAQ will probably be a bit
out-of-date by the time you read it.
I have included most of Peter's and Windigo's original work, edited
only for purposes of clarity and readability.
Subject: "Law Doctor" Manus Grubor FAQ
Additional question-answer pairs are eagerly solicited.
Questions:
1.0 Who is Grubor
2.0 This sounds a lot like Grubor but has a
different name. Is it him?
3.0 Does he really have a Doctorate as he claims?
4.0 Is he really a Professor?
5.0 Is he for real or just a troll?
6.0 Why is he so obnoxious?
7.0 What is all this "pedophile", "hard-drug pusher",
"dumb c*nt" stuff about?
8.0 Why does he post all this stuff?
9.0 Why does he post followups to his own articles?
10.0 What is all this "home newsgroup" nonsense?
11.0 What is all that other crap in his Newsgroups:
line?
12.0 What is all this "censorship" business?
13.0 What is the Cabal?
14.0 What is the Usenet Freedom Council?
15.0 What about the book he is always talking about?
16.0 What is this lawsuit he keeps threatening?
17.0 Has he filed a real lawsuit?
18.0 Has anyone filed a lawsuit against him?
19.0 How can a verify the claims against him?
20.0 What should i do about him?
21.0 If i do need to complain, who do i complain to?
22.0 What is this newsgroup he claims to have created,
misc.activism.cannabis?
1.0 Who is "Law Doctor", "Doctor God", "Law Professor", "Manus", Grubor,
DrGodF*ck, etc.?
That's a good question. His name is John Martin Grubor, a disbarred
attorney from Pennsylvania.
He has claimed, at one time or another, to be at least one of the following:
-a lawyer -a disbarred lawyer -a retired lawyer (as opposed to a disbarred one) -a Confucian priest -a Tae Kwan Do master -a Ninjitsu master -a systems administrator for a law firm -the inventor of LAN systems (among other things) -a Vietnam veteran (in a communications MOS) -a Doctor of Law (see below for more info on his claimed degrees) -a Professor of Law -a private detective -an undercover agent for the ACLU -a police informant -an undercover investigator for the police (in prison) -candidate for Sheriff of Allegheny County, PA. -a cannabis legalization activist and head of a legalization foundation, medpot(c) (which appears to exist only in Grubor's brain)
-Among other things.
He also frequently refers to himself as God (DrGod, God, DrGodFuck being
the most common references).
He has claimed to be the father of Kibo, a rather well-known net.personality
(kibo@world.std.com); as well as Howard Stern.
For more info on Kibo, see the alt.religion.kibology FAQ.
For more info on Howard Stern, see the alt.fan.howard-stern FAQ
Sorry, i don't have pointers to either.
On occasion he denies he's been disbarred, so here are a couple of direct
quotes:
In article <626272.23.30911A08@mizzou1.missouri.edu>, DrG wrote:
>I guess they disbarred me the next year -- who cares?
>I have a lot more fucking power as a disbarred-lawyer than
>any lawyer ever has.
and
Message-ID: <DJF9tM.6AF@pgh.nauticom.net>
Date: Mon, 11 Dec 1995 12:39:21 GMT
[responding to a question on the existence of PA Supreme Court sanctions
on himself]
NONE WHATSOEVER! HA! HA! The only "restriction you will be able to come
up with is the fact that i was disbarred back in 1982.
Now he's saying he resigned from the bar "before" the disbarrment hearing, and
that the disbarrment was a political.
He goes into detail on this in this
message.
The disbarrment has been confirmed, and i have a transcription of the
Pennsylvania Supreme Court's disbarrment
proceedings.
See question 19.0 for resources for more Grubor info.
"Manus" is the name of some company. A whois on manus.org gives the
snail-mail address for Internet Law Systems; a company which seems to be
purely fictional, or simply Grubor himself. He has claimed it is a cannabis
legalization activist organization, among other things. This status is now
claimed for his fictional Medpot(c), which he claims is devoted to
legalizing cannabis for medical purposes only.
2.0 Grubor's aliases.
Grubor has used, and continues to use, many aliases; usually through free
trial AOL, Prodigy or Compuserve accounts; but he has also paid for many
accounts on local providers.
Some of Grubor's aliases:
-manus@manus.org (his vanity domain) -anything else at manus.org -drg@telerama.lm.com (likely dead) -various pgh.org addresses (apparently another vanity account) -Zeus (an usaor.net account, now dead) -maryjane (a Compuserve address, dead) -DrMacho (drmacho@pgh.nauticom.net, dead) -Vwqe99b@prodigy.com (formerly using the alias "Amy Martin" now "Stanley Brown"; one of two accounts used for posting the infamous "List of Homosexuals in the Internet"--not dead, but rarely used) -Law Doctor or Doctor of Law used with his drg@manus.org and drg@pgh.nauticom.net (dead) accounts -two other AOL accounts--lawsystems@ and jgrubor@--are dead. -aga@dhp.com (still active, but rarely used) -zando@ix.netcom.com (a former favorite, likely dead. He used many different aliases with this one claiming alternately that this account belongs to his mother and his wife. All indications are that he is the only one who used it.) He has also used CyberLawMaster, Lord Grubor, Lord Grub, and others with his manus.org and ix.netcom.com addresses. He morphs his aliases frequently in an admitted attempt to foil killfiles. Possible aliases/morph accounts are: -nancybett@aol.com (dead) All other accounts are generally verified as belonging to Grubor or not rather quickly.
3.0 Does he really have a doctorate.
Not as such. He has what is known as a Juris Doctor degree.
This is the basic LL.B (Bachelors) with supplemental study for eligibility
for the Bar Exam. It is a bit more than a basic Bachelor's, but not quite
a Master's.
There has been some debate on whether the work put into a J.D. is the
equivalent of a Ph.D. In order to enter law school, apparently one must
already have a bachelors degree, though not necessarily in law.
The further study in law is tangential rather than continual as it
relates to the previous Bachelor's, and as compared to other disciplines.
In any case, a J.D. does not require a thesis/dissertation like a Ph.D does,
and is therefore not a Doctorate. I have heard it referred to as "a
white-collar VOC/TEC" degree.
The Law degree equivalent to a Ph.D in other disciplines is the LL.M.
Grubor has, on occasion, claimed to have a Ph.D in Law, as well as Ph.Ds in
unspecified sciences (i have heard from one source that he claims a Ph.D in
psychology).
4.0 What about him being a professor?
He claims to have taught at Penn State, but Penn State doesn't have a law
school. Although it is a possibility (though not likely, considering his
other claims) that he did teach undergraduate Business Law.
5.0 Is he for real or just a troll.
It was originally suspected (by Peter da Silva and others) that he was
some college kid who heard about Rob Pike's on-line persona "Elizabeth
Bimmler", who staged a Monty-Pythonesque reign of terror on net.suicide
in the early '80s. Or that he might even be Pike himself. Other people who
have investigated him have reported that there is a John Grubor, who used
to be a lawyer, never won a case, and was disbarred under apparently nastier
circumstances than usual. So he's on the level, that far, but whether he's
just so twisted he wouldn't know "straight" if it bit him on the ass or he's
just playing 1 I don't know.
His antics have gone *way* beyond just playing sillybuggers. He has
advocated mailbombing email accounts of German government officials, as well
as infecting German computers with viruses (because of the Compuserve
censorship incident). He has also advocated this for other systems that
don't pay by his rules. See section 14.0 for more info.
6.0 Why are his posts always so obnoxious?
He claimed that you need to be "bad" to get attention on the net. He has
also said, repeatedly, that his pit-bull tactics are justified for him since
"that is the only thing people like
An interesting note. He has been known to severely upbraid anyone who posts
to misc.kids (formerly one of his favorite newsgroups to crosspost to) using
even mild profanity; while posting a two page reply (usually to a female
poster) using highly graphic, sexually oriented profanity to the same
newsgroup.
7.0 What is all this "pedophile", "hard drug pusher", and
"homosexual" talk about?
His favorite tactic when dealing with anyone who disputes or disagrees
with him in any way (or just does something he doesn't like) is to label
them "lesbians", "pedophiles", "homosexuals", or "hard drug pushers".
He has also used racist epithets when replying to two individuals.
Apparently, he was kicked of a mailing list for similar behaviour (more info
on this in a later version).
He has published a "List of known Homosexuals on the Internet" from two
seperate accounts; one of his admitted accounts and one of his morph
accounts. The list is of people who happen to have opposed him at
some point or other, mostly in his attempt to end the rec. and alt.drugs.*
reorganization through harrassment of those involved. (See the next
question.) He is also using it for those who rmgrouped his illegitimately
created misc.activism.cannabis. More in qwuestion 22.0.
He has also threatened to post a similar list of "Pedophiles on the Internet"
and this may be the reason he lost his AOL accounts.
He has also tagged an AOL postmaster (David O'Brian) as a "pedophile"; in
retaliation for the cancellation of his AOL accounts.
8.0 Why does he post all this stuff?
Probably just to attract attention. He claims to be opposing the
"promotion of recreational drugs on Usenet". This is referring mainly to
the previously mentioned *.drugs.* groups restructuring. He has stated
several times that he "owns Usenet" and constantly demands that the groups
be restructured his way; which would create drug-related groups under
inappropriate hierarchies. He also claims to be opposing "net censors",
which is those who are responsible for the running of Usenet since they
refuse to be bullied by him. It also refers to anyone who opposes him or
attempts to correct him.
He has not done any work to achieve his stated goals --preferring instead
to attempt to bully others into doing the work for him-- and has claimed that
this was because he was too busy fighting the "hard-drug pushers" and
"pedophiles" on Usenet.
Mostly, though, it appears to be just another case of attention garnering
and net.masturbation.
(He previously threatened to sue Usenet providers because several regulars
on rec.nude complained about him posting sexually explicit material on their
newsgroup. Again, just throwing a net.tempter.tantrum. -windigo (nyar!))
For more info, see below.
9.0 Why does he follow up to himself?
It appears to be mainly a tactic to spread the thread to yet more
irrelevant groups. He generally includes more groups when he does 0
like this. I also seems like the juvenile habit of reinforcing
one's opinion by yelling it louder and louder.
10.0 What is all this "home newsgroup" nonsense?
He has not properly configured his news spool and has several non-existent
groups residing on it. He has claimed that one of these, formerly alt.is
now alt.is.too, is his "home" newsgroup and all responses to articles
must be crossposted to the stated "home" newsgroup of the original poster.
He also does this for several other net.kooks; eg Steve "Speedbump" Boursy,
who's "home" is the defunct news.admin.policy.
11.0 What's that other stuff he's putting in his newsgroup
line?
More of the same. Looks like he broke his active file, and when he rebuilt
it he just created an entry for every directory in his news spool. So he's
an incompetant system administrator as well as an incompetant lawyer.
And he has a habit of crossposting to completely irrelevant newsgroups for
no apparent reason; or a because of some misconception of what the names of
certain newsgroups mean (apparently he doesn't read charters or FAQs).
(It looks to me as if his news-spool is broken. He often has phantom groups
in his headers, so it either is broken and he hasn't fixed it, or he never
configured the thing properly in the first place. -windigo (nyar!))
Grubor has a bad habit of putting irrelevant newsgroups in his Newsgroups:
line, such as alt.zima, etc.; frequently multiple times (thus posting
multiple copies of the article to that group, a process commonly known as
spamming). During the re.drugs.* creation flamewar he constantly put the
misc.kids.* and alt.parenting.* groups back in the Newsgroups: line when others
had edited them out at the repeated request of regulars of those groups.
12.0 What is all this censorship business he is ranting
about?
It started when Jan Isley, the UVV responsible for the vote on the
rec.drugs.* reorg, cancelled a number of his posts.
Grubor apparently posted some email from Isley to himself, which Jan
specifically asked him not to post, referring to Grubor's intentions to
break the UUNet guidelines for newgroup voting. The messages from Jan were
not abusive, as can easily be determined from Grubor's subsequent mass
reposting of said messages
Apparently, Grubor planned on posting (and crossposting to irrelevant
newsgroups) an altered CFV; which, among other things, would be
pre-filled-out by Grubor. A blatant violation of the Big-Eight (UUNet)
newgroup voting guidelines. Also, there is the issue of forging posts, since
an altered CFV would have to have a From: line indicating the votetaker.
See the documentation on the voting process for more info.
The posts that were cancelled were the ones which contained the text of
Isley's mail to Grubor warning Grubor that any altered CFVs would be subject
to cancellation.
Grubor responded by reposting the email yet again, with comments;
spamming/velveeta-ing it to a huge number of newsgroups (under at least half
a dozen different Subject: lines) including:
alt.drugs.*, rec.drugs.*, alt.censorship, news.groups, news.admin.net-abuse,
alt.discordia, alt.religion.kibology, and alt.cyberpunk; to name a few.
He has also threatened to sue and/or press criminal charges against Jan and
the rest of the UVV crew, a common tactic.
His spamming of the articles in question triggered the EMP/ECP cancelation
guidelines used by Chris Lewis (and others), who then proceeded to cancel the
articles.
Grubor responded by reposting the articles--aided by Steve Boursy--to a
horde of irrelevant groups again; and the articles continue to get canceled.
Grubor and Boursy have both 1 legal action against Lewis; and have
also made vague threats which could be interpreted as intending physical
harm. I have also heard, but not confirmed, that Chris Lewis received bomb
threats from one or both of them.
Another incident in this vein concerns one "Vladimir Fomin", eventually
determined to be an alias account of at least two different people.
He/they was/were a member of Grubor's clique, and also has several ECP/EMP
posts cancelled. The ISP which was the home for this entity eventually
terminated the account as soon as the determined that it was being used by
several persons, which is against their AUP. Grubor and his clique tried
to say that "V. Fomin's" account was terminated under pressure from the
"Cabal" (see section 13.0) because of "Fomin's" criticism of the "Cabal".
Yet another incident was the retromoderation of alt.religion.monica by John
Milburn to eliminate flame-wars started by one Richard Lee; who admitted to
spamming, excessive flaming, excessive crossposting, and attempting to shut
down an unrelated group using a variety of these methods. Lee's part was
immediately taken up by Grubor and his clique.
Along with this, Grubor has also begun advocating electronic mailbombing of
various ISPs. Most notably panix.com, the former home of the "Vladimir
Fomin" entity; and the ISP homes of spam cancelers and almost anyone else
who disagrees with him.
13.0 What is the Cabal?
A figment of Grubor's imagination. It is how he refers to the
Higher-Ups(tm) and policy makers at UUNet and various other organizations,
and anyone else who disagrees with him. It is drawn from an old Usenet joke.
A number of the people Grubor regularly harasses have begun picking up the
joke and having a bit of fun with it. As well as doing a bit of parodying
of Grubor and others in his clique.
For more info check out the Great Renaming FAQ at this website:
Great Renaming FAQ
14.0 What the hell is the Usenet Freedom Council?
It is an organization that exists only in Grubor's (and perhaps Steve
"Speedbump" Boursy's) imagination; consisting of himself, Steve Boursy,
Steve Winter, the Vladimir Fomin entity, Bob Allisat, Colin James III, and a
few others. Better known as the Lusenet Cabal.
Grubor has stated that his group will do away with the Cabal and become the
rulers of Usenet. He says that the UFC will sue them out of existence.
Failing this (and for other reasons), he advocates mailbomb and virus attacks against anyone
who opposes him in any way; though he probably lacks the technical knowledge
to do this, at least in an untraceable way. There is evidence he has lost
one or more accounts because of this threat.
15.0 What is this book he has been claiming to be writing.
16.0 What are all these lawsuits he keeps threatening to
file?
A. Threatening lawsuits is a favorite tactic of Grubor's. There are
a number of different lawsuits which have been or are being threatened. A
few examples are below.
He has threatened to file a suit against all ISPs under US Code 1983 for
"conspiricy to restrict freedom of speech". Apparently, this involved the
folks on rec.nude getting upset with him over his continuous posting of
sexually-oriented material to the group.
He has threatened a lawsuit against UUNet and Usenet
He has threatened to file civil and criminal charges against the Cabal
(see previous question) for cancelling his posts of Isley's email; and for
any cancels of future posts (by him) of altered CFVs. He has also claimed
that AOL and it's postmasters (David O'Donnell and Bruce Peckenpaugh) abetted
the Cabal and are therefore liable as well. The (threatened) lawsuit
against AOL is likely in retribution for their nuking of his (morph and
legit) accounts as a result of his proposed "pedophile" list (see above).
He has also threatened lawsuits against notable spam cancelers, primarily
for nuking some of his articles when they crossed the ECP/EMP threshold.
As well as claiming to be about to sue the Cabal out of existence.
17.0 What about the lawsuit he claims has been filed.
He has filed an appeal of the loss of his drivers license (due to his
conviction for possesion of cannabis) with the Pennsylvania Supreme court.
It has been filed pro se, that is, by Grubor himself, acting as a citizen,
-not- a lawyer.
The actual motions filed by Grubor are in Carl Olsen's archive on Calyx:
There are two files of Grubor's motions for appeal, which he has since lost.
There is not, however, any archive of the original court decision, or the
plea-bargin which was the cause of his losing his license, or substantiation
of the "medical necessity" he claims for his use --and uses a key argument in
his appeal. A source for this information would be appreciated.
18.0 What is the lawsuit that was threatened against Grubor about and will it
really happen?
There was a class-action Libel suit planned, being filed primarily by
Windigo, the receiver of the brunt of Grubor's abuse. As for "will it
happen", it appears to have been abandoned.
19.0 How can i verify that Grubor is indeed a disbarred lawyer and has the
degree he claims.
Here are the resources for that info.
For disbarment and sanctions contact the following--you will need full name
and date of disbarrment -John Martin Grubor, disbarred Oct. 20, 1982-
The addresses and phone numbers 0 are below.
A transcription of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court disbarrment decision is
available here.
20.0 What should I do about him?
Pretty much ignore him. If his actions cause problems (ie. mailbombing,
harassment, spam/velveeta) you can complain to his ISP; but don't expect
them to take any action. They have repeatedly refused to do anything about
him. The best thing to do is just killfile him; although this is easier
said than done since he uses several email addresses, many of them throwaway
AOL and Prodigy accounts, and he changes his aliases frequently in order to
get around killfiles. You have been warned.
Instructions for various newsreaders follow. Aliases used are his more
common ones; and may be obsolete.
For his zando@ix.netcom.com you can complain to abuse@netcom.com, but don't
expect a reply as they appear to be undermanned and swamped with complaints
about their users.
22.0 What is this newsgroup he claims to have created,
misc.activism.cannabis?
Tale immediately sent out a cmsg: rmgroup, which set off yet another war
with Grubor, which at this time is still raging.
I hope that helps. If you notice any errors, typos, necessary updates
(although i do try to keep on top of the situation myself) please email me here, or
at dharland@telebyte.com, and i will update the FAQ.
He has also said he's writing a book to be titled "Internet Anarchy Tamed"
or some such. Supposedly about how he and the Usenet Freedom Council took
over the Internet; or something along those lines. He says that everyone who
spoke against any member of the Lusenet Cabal will be in the book.
[If anyone has more info on this, please let me know.]
Carl E. Olsen's webpage
call the PA Supreme Court Disciplinary Board Office in Pittsburgh
at 412-565-5334
for a copy of his disbarrment and other info, snail mail to
Pennsylvania State Court Prothonotary Office
486 City Hall
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 19107
phone# 215-560-6370
Allegheny County Disciplinary Board
suite 400, Union Trust Building
501 Grant St.
Pittsburgh, PA 15219
The source for confirmation of his Juris Doctor degree is:
Lucille Adkins
University of Pittsburgh Law School
(412) 648-1409
An interesting note. Apparently, because of his disbarrment and his
shenanigans on Usenet--and a number of complaints--Pitt Law School is
considering banning him from their Law programs. They have no connection
with him at all.
For trn, "$HOME/News/KILL":
/Law Doctor/f:j
/Manus/f:j
/Grubor/f:j
/DrG/f:j
For nn, "$HOME/.nn/kill":
::!n:Law Doctor
::!n:Law Prof
::!n:DrG
::!n:Manus
For Gnus 5.x, $HOME/News/all.SCORE file:
("from"
("Law Doctor" -10000 nil s)
("Manus" -10000 nil s)
("Grubor" -10000 nil s)
("DrG" -10000 nil s))
Since -1000 is the default threshold for expunging (killing)
articles, -10000 will keep Gnus' adaptive scoring from bringing
articles back up.
For Tin, $HOME/.tin/filter:
scope=*
type=0
case=1
from=*law doctor*
scope=*
type=0
case=1
from=*doctor of law*
scope=*
type=0
case=1
from=drg
scope=*
type=0
case=1
from=manus
Instructions for other newsreaders would be appreciated.
21.0 Who do i complain to?
For his manus.org accounts, complain to postmaster@telerama.lm.com.
Manus.org is a vanity domain, located at lm.com. Complaints for other
accounts can be sent to postmaster, abuse, or sysop at the account domain.
He attempted to subvert the creation of a legitimate newsgroup hierarchy
misc.activism.cannabis.{misc,announce,etc} by creating a bogus
misc.activism.cannabis. He claims it is solely for the use of his
(fictional) Medpot(c) organization; and that it is a moderated group. He
actually sent out a csmg: newgroup for it. It was only picked up by a few
small ISP's which accept any newgroup message, and AOL. Most reputable ISPs
will not accept newgroups from anyone but Tale (David Lawrence), who works
on the news system at Uunet, the largest Usenet backbone.