The Video Professor owes me lunch.
Colorado infomercial icon John Scherer filed a federal lawsuit in September against 100 anonymous people who he says defamed his products and sales practices online. Scherer was so sure he was going to win this case that he bet me lunch.
“I have a right to find out who those people are,” Scherer told me in September, “and I fully intend to exercise my right. I will stay with this case, and I will get the names that I am requesting. I will pursue this until the Supreme Court tells me I can’t get them.”
The Video Professor — that graying, balding but somewhat handsome guy who hawks computer tutorials on TV — isn’t talking so boldly now.
Earlier this week, he withdrew his case, and he’s not saying why.
“No comment,” said his spokesman Brian Olson, “and we’ll have to negotiate later on that lunch.”
“When you lose, you never want to talk,” crowed Paul Levy, an attorney with Washington, D.C.-based Public Citizen.
The Video Professor had been granted a subpoena that asked the owner of two websites — and — to reveal the identities of scores of people who’ve posted disparaging messages online.
Levy called the subpoena an affront to the First Amendment and defended the owner of the websites for free.
Levy guessed that Scherer withdrew the lawsuit because a judge was about to toss it anyway.
“They faced the inevitable and dismissed the case,” Levy said.
No comment from Scherer’s lawyer, Gregory Smith, of Denver’s Fairfield and Woods, citing his client’s wishes.
The Video Professor is gentle, kind and wise in his TV appearances. But in real life, he can be kind of a tough guy.
He got a bit steamed with me in September when I first challenged the merits of his case — which appeared to me as nothing more than legal intimidation against any customer who might express a beef online.
“If they are true, I want to find it out,” Scherer said of the anonymous complaints, “and if they are not true, I’m heading their way. I’m heading their way.”
People have complained online that the Video Professor lures customers with a free offer and that if they are not careful following instructions, they soon will find unwanted charges on their credit-card statements. Scherer, whose company records all sales calls, says it’s just not true.
“If somebody has a problem, we just refund them — end of story,” he said.
Scherer suspects many of these complaints are made-up stories — most likely from competitors — and he went on a mission to prove it. Unfortunately, he couldn’t, so he backed off.
Since writing about this, I have talked to several people with complaints about Scherer — but most of these complaints fell apart after I asked a few questions.
I wish I could report otherwise. I love getting the goods on celebrities. And in Denver, Scherer is about as famous as one can get after John Elway and Dog the Bounty Hunter, who no longer lives here and isn’t on TV anymore.
Scherer also swore to me that he would take care of anyone with an unresolved issue. And he has sold about 10 million videos and generated only a few hundred complaints, which isn’t too bad for a brainy-looking remake of Ron Popeil and his Veg-O-Matic, as near as I can tell.
The Video Professor is also a successful entrepreneur, and I admire anybody who has built up a giant enterprise from nothing. But as a proponent of free speech, I also had to point out the folly of his lawsuit.
First, he’s on TV. Of course people are going to rant about him — and not all of it is going to be true. Second, he sells a lot of products. Odds are, someone is going to be unhappy.
Suing a bunch of “John and Jane Does” in an era when everyone is complaining online is like trying to call the police after your health-care provider unjustly denies a claim. (Try it sometime and see.)
Scherer was right that individuals are not legally entitled to spread defamatory falsehoods online. But Scherer was wrong about the legal hurdles he faced to prove that the statements were false and defamatory and had caused actual damage.
The Internet is so rife with noise from anonymous whiners that it’s hard to imagine why Scherer spent his hard-hawked money on this legal misadventure.
I am also amused that Smith, Scherer’s attorney, interjected himself into our little bet by inviting himself to our lunch.
“You will be buying. You do understand that?” Smith said in September. “And we’ll go to Morton’s.”
Morton’s sounds fine to me, guys — but your opposing counsel, Levy, says I should have gotten it in writing.
“You’ll be eating crumbled-up CDs,” Levy laughed. “Here, have some recycled plastic for lunch, Al Lewis.”
Al Lewis’ column appears Sundays, Tuesdays and Fridays. Respond to him at , 303-954-1967 or alewis@denverpost.com.
