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Readers of the Advocate may know that I have recently started a new weightlifting gym fitness center in Newberg, Oregon called Power Palace Gym. As of today the gym will have been open for three weeks and so far the response from our customers has been excellent. The gym is still very much in its prototype state, and there is a lot of work for me to do still in getting the space the best that it can be. And yet, we have people coming in every day to develop their physiques, obtain their weight loss and/or strength goals, and pursue excellence.
Yesterday around 1 pm an individual by the name of Jeffrey D. Coats entered my gym while I was resting in my office after having a particularly intense leg day session. He seemed to think I should know who he was, but I did not. He then mentioned he was a personal injury attorney. This puzzled me because to my knowledge we have not had any accidents in the gym. He then revealed he was representing Kristen Stoller and asked if I had received his demand letter. I had not, and based on the address he gave it sounded that he had sent the letter to the address of one of my family members and not to me personally.
(Note: After some research it appears Jeffrey Coats has some familial relationship to Kristen Stoller, as her maiden name is also Coats.
The precise relationship I am still attempting to determine but his social media shows he is affiliated with Progressive Yamhill / NEEd members such as Elise Hollamon.
Update: According to a tip, Jeffrey Coats is Kristen Stoller’s father).
Coats proceeded to accuse me of slandering Kristen Stoller in the news articles of this paper, and we had a short argument about the matter. The articles he seemed to be most upset about are the following,
- Kristen Stoller Threatens to Sue Yamhill Advocate For Exposing Her, But Here’s The Truth
- Newberg Student Performs at Drag Queen Show at Officially Recognized School Program Dance Center
I reminded him several times during this argument that all of the claims I made about Kristen Stoller are based on her own publicly made statements about her beliefs and activities. He seemed to believe that Kristen Stoller should be excused from any personal responsibility for any social or financial fallouts she and her businesses have had as a consequence of the public statements she made becoming spotlighted in my articles, because I regard her behavior to be morally reprehensible and that much of her so-called “social activism” is actually a form of grooming (as I explained in detail in a prior article). He disagreed with my interpretation of what grooming is. It was clear we were not going to see eye to eye on this matter and so I asked him to leave, which he did after some further argument after I made it clear the conversation was over.
As he did not leave me any paperwork, demand letters or other kinds of legal notices I believe his primary motivation in coming into my place of business to threaten me with a lawsuit was some kind of intimidation tactic.
The security cameras in my gym captured our encounter and I have uploaded a copy of the footage to the Yamhill Advocate YouTube channel, which I have embedded below,
During the interaction in my gym, Jeffrey Coats stated that he had sent a letter addressed to the home of one of my relatives. I was not aware of the existence of this letter nor had I read it when he came into the gym. After he left I contacted my relative and there indeed was a letter which had been mailed earlier in June to me, and that letter reads as follows,
This is my response to this ridiculous demand letter:
No.
And what follows is my detailed response to every claim this letter makes and has erroneously claimed to be “facts”.
Claim:
My Answer: Kristen Stoller has not been defamed by myself nor by any article published on this website and its printed newspaper edition.
Kristen Stoller is solely responsible for any reputational damage that has resulted from her own actions and publicly made statements. The only thing that I and this newspaper have done is shine a spotlight on what she has admitted to doing. I have spoken truth to power and because she does not like it she is now seeking to blame others for her own failures because events did not turn out the way she had hoped they would.
Furthermore, Kristen Stoller self-identifies herself as a public figure on her own social media accounts, for example, on her Instagram profile,
Lastly, Kristen Stoller is deeply involved in the political activities in Yamhill County which I have criticized in this publication and my criticism of her actions is directly related to this political activity she has chosen to participate in. Consequently, everything that I have stated about her does in fact allow for a libel lawsuit dismissal per ORS 31.150 Special motion to strike, which contrary to what you have claimed in our interaction yesterday, applies to any claim in a civil action that arises out of:
- (a) Any oral statement made, or written statement or other document submitted, in a legislative, executive or judicial proceeding or other proceeding authorized by law;
- (b) Any oral statement made, or written statement or other document submitted, in connection with an issue under consideration or review by a legislative, executive or judicial body or other proceeding authorized by law;
- (c) Any oral statement made, or written statement or other document presented, in a place open to the public or a public forum in connection with an issue of public interest; or
- (d) Any other conduct in furtherance of the exercise of the constitutional right of petition or the constitutional right of free speech in connection with a public issue or an issue of public interest.
Contrary to your claims, my criticism of Kristen Stoller’s actions are a matter of public interest because I am critical of her political activities and the impact these activities are having in the lives of local residents in the community I live and for whom the Yamhill Advocate is written for.
Furthermore, parents deserve to know if their child’s dance studio instructor is grooming their kids into fringe political ideologies and encouraging them to develop sexual fetishes because that dance instructor believes it will strengthen her political party and help them win elections. That is a matter of public interest and consequently ORS 31.150 Special motion to strike does and will apply to any frivolous lawsuits you file against me in a pathetic attempt to intimidate me into retracting the truth about Kristen Stoller and her accomplices in the Progressive Yamhill group.
Claim:
My Answer. None of this is evidence that I have defamed Kristen Stoller.
Instead, what you have done is provide evidence that other people may have also read my articles and reviewed the evidence contained within them — the things which Kristen Stoller herself said and did — and arrived at the same conclusions that I did.
In your effort to grasp at straws trying to demonstrate that Kristen Stoller has supposedly suffered “damages” as a result of my publication, what you have actually done is provide evidence that prove her actions are also regarded by many others as immoral, unethical and possibly even illegal, and so these other parties have asked her to resign from their social clubs such as the Rotary, and refused to fund her non-profits such as the Community Wellness Collective.
And so, with these paragraphs you have provided evidence against your claims about my newspaper; none of this supports your claims of libel / defamation.
Claim:
My answer:
“Malice” in the context of a defamation case means with a reckless disregard for the truth. Everything I have written about Kristen Stoller is to the best of my knowledge true, and I feel strongly about it being true because I have many — possibly hundreds — of screenshots of things she has written over the years on her social media profiles and which I reviewed in the drafting of my opinion about her motivations.
I have already published many of these screenshots of her own statements, as well as videos she either created herself or appeared in, where she further elaborates on her viewpoints and goals. They have been published to support the claims I make about her, serving as evidence that my claims are true.
Consequently, because my articles are well sourced and rely heavily on the things which Kristen Stoller has admitted herself to doing and saying, I believe that if Oregon did not have its anti-SLAAP law to allow for swift dismissal of frivolous lawsuits such as the one you are threatening me and my publication with, you would find it challenging to find a jury in Yamhill County who will watch any of the videos featured in my articles — especially the one featuring a Newberg High School student who performed a burlesque dance performance in drag at Kristen Stoller’s dance studio — and will arrive at any other conclusion other than that Kristen Stoller’s behavior is a form of grooming.
In fact, in the time since the publication of my article it is obvious that Kristen Stoller has continued to exploit minors for her own agenda, such as this video she seems to have created and uploaded to her Facebook profile as a public post in order to promote her event Wine Country Pride which advertised a “drag queen story hour” event that minors were encouraged to participate in.
This is grooming behavior, she is exploiting children and I will not be intimidated into being silenced about it.
Claim:
My answer:
When possible I have censored the faces of minors in my articles, but it is impossible for me to do so when she uploads videos, such as the above video and others, which I then must reference when citing evidence for my claims about her.
My articles are evidence based and when I make a claim, I show the evidence for that claim I am making. Some of the pieces of evidence contain images of minors given the nature of the claims I am making about Kristen Stoller. This is within the permissible use laws of both the USA and the state of Oregon.
Furthermore, all images are taken from social media platforms which Kristen Stoller has uploaded photos and made public herself. It is not private information and have been published within the scope of fair use for purposes of commentary and criticism in pursuit of publishing information of the public’s interest. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and that is what I have provided for the claims I have made about Kristen Stoller.
Claim:
My Answer: Nothing you have said here makes any sense.
The law in which you have cited, ORS 31.200 Liability of radio or television station personnel for defamation, has nothing to do with newspapers and even if it did, I do not believe the law could be interpreted in the way that you are attempting to do so. Stating that I own and fund my newspaper does not result in the revocation of any of my rights to free speech under federal nor state law.
Are you sure that you understand defamation law? Based on this and other claims you have made in this letter, it does not appear to be your area of expertise.
Claim:
My Answer:
I find it rather revealing that Kristen Stoller believes she is entitled to $500,000 because her nonprofit failed to get another half a million dollar grant. It appears she regards the Community Wellness Collective and herself to be one and the same.
Any anguish, mental, emotional or humiliations that Kristen Stoller has suffered are a consequence of her own poor judgement. Again, all I have done is highlight the things she has publicly said on social media; things she has voluntarily published onto the internet. Consequently, it stands to reason that she would have suffered these social consequences regardless of whether or not I published my articles spotlighting these things she placed onto the internet. The social consequences for her behavior were inevitable.
And so, Kristen Stoller will receive nothing from me.
I instead demand that you issue a public apology to me for wasting my time at my place of business. Your threats have distracted me from my work at the gym and my newspaper, requiring me to instead need to devote time to responding to your cartoonish attempt to intimidate me.
I’ve seen better.
The reporting shall continue.
Sincerely,
Carey Martell
Editor, Yamhill Advocate
Note: If you would like to support the Advocate against the frivolous lawsuit that Kristen Stoller is threatening this newspaper with, please donate via our GiveSendGo account or make a one-time donation via our SubscribeStar account. Thank you.
The truth is I wrote Carey Martell a letter informing him that falsely accusing my client of “grooming children” has negatively impacted her stellar reputation in the community. He didn’t respond.
I believe in discussing differences rather than throwing misinformation around. When he didn’t respond I decided to stop into his public place of business to have a civilized discussion rather than just filing a lawsuit.
I told Mr. Martell, in a calm, civilized, professional voice, that the reason I took the case is my belief that there are limits. I told him our system of public discourse is founded upon the ability for differing views to be discussed without personal attacks.
When he accused my client of “grooming children” he stepped out of civilian public discourse and into libel, which is a tort for which one owes damages in our legal system.
He wanted nothing to do with that discussion and became quite belligerent. When he asked me to leave I did.
We will have to get a judge to tell him that falsely accusing a person of “grooming children” is libel. And for that he owes damages.
There are limits on what one can print. The truth matters.
Dude, your “client” is your daughter, correct? An important detail you’ve withheld and clearly is the only reason you’ve taken the case even though you don’t specialize in this area of law.
Everyone can watch the video. At no point did I become “belligerent”. That you would lie about this shows how out of touch with reality you are.
Nothing published on this newspaper has “stepped out of civilian public discourse”, you are delusional and clearly do not understand the laws you are trying to interpret.
Your frivolous lawsuit will go nowhere and I will publish the result in this newspaper.
Coats: You wish you could roll-back your encounter using the above statement but too late, you’re on tape. Your ‘alternate history version’ truly has me laughing sadly at your self deceptions. Don’t make it worse. Let it go. If you don’t it will focus a bright light on the studio, the young dancer, the recall losses….Not good.
Still waiting for the Coats lawsuit…. I’ve read his above dillusional walk-back statement. Still smiling….
Thank you , Carey , for another excellent expose . It really takes a low life person K Stoller and lawyer Coats to disrupt your business , and they’re somehow pursuing a “righteous ” case . Thank you for being bold and courageous , May God protect you and give you success with the Advocate , and the gym . Where is the gym located ?
Thank you. The gym is located in the shopping plaza just behind NAPA Auto Parts, 120 N Everest Road Newberg Oregon.
Great article. Excellent responses to the Coat letter. If Stoller is having difficulties, it is the result of her own actions and statements. All you did was make them available for everyone to see, hear, and be their own judge of Stoller. On a related note, the community can not thank you enough for the role you played in helping expose the NEEd group and in flipping the school board: just say’in.
Thank you.
my edit: ” The community can not thank you enough for exposing the NEEd group and for helping to flip the school board.”