Maricopa Superior Court fines Cyber Ninjas $50K per day. Cyber Ninjas’ response, filing for bankruptcy.

Cyber Ninjas’ response? They decided to dissolve their company. Literally that is not how this works and dissolving your business to avoid a massive daily accruable sanctions.

… as a general habit I have tried to refrain from the drama. Some days I’m more successful at that then other days. Yesterday I clearly strayed away from my own personal commitments.

To those of whom that are upset about yesterday’s publication. First you need to know you have every right to feel that way. I’m sorry that I let you down. Going forward, I will continue to make every effort to stay “on task”… because I know it’s not exactly productive.

Again I’m genuinely sorry to my readers, I know yesterday’s late afternoon publication created undue stress, confusion and dismay. I can admit that it was selfish of me to share what I’ve bottled up for years. I reached my braking point. However that’s not an acceptable excuse, I’d like to acknowledge that it was totally unfair of me to off load on to my valued readers.

My husband decided that I need a constructive outlet —so he purchased an early Valentine’s Day present. That man knows what I need before I know what I need. But a mutually amicable compromised was made, he can’t regulate who’s face(s) I can tape to the punching bag <snort>

The reality is I put my own needs to finally defend myself after years of relentless harassment. I’ve tried really hard to keep my mouth shut, conversely I’m also intellectually honest enough to say it was thoughtless and pretty selfish of me. And for that I am truly sorry.…and now back to your normally schedule Substack receipt/file drop programming👇🏻

Your honor we are dissolving Cyber Ninjas & are preparing to file for bankruptcy…

On January 6, 2022 shortly after 9PM DC Local time the Maricopa County Superior Court - after months of countless motions and cross motions, it appears the Judge had enough. To be fair this has been a slow burn and based on preliminary research it appears that the Court gave Cyber Ninjas adequate time to prove (or disprove) the numerous falsity of their election fraud claims or at a minimum ameliorate the glaring infirmaries in their briefs . Unsurprisingly Cyber Ninjas consistently failed to provide any evidence of their bizarre election claims.

To that end on January 5, 2022 @MaricopaVote issued a blistering report. And as the tweet below indicates, the Report refuted each and every claim made by Cyber Ninjas and by proxy Donald Trump. In total Cyber Ninjas made eighty yes 80 false claims in their “audit” —you can read more here. By contrast Cyber Ninjas’ failure to provide concrete evidence of fraud, coupled with their failure to comply with multiple court orders. Cyber Ninjas only has themselves to blame.

The AZ - abc15 - Data Guru @Garrett_Archer

JUST IN: @MaricopaVote response to senate election audit can only verify 87 questionable ballots in the list of 53,304 generated by the Cyber Ninjas. They refute every claim made by the senate contractors as either false inaccurate or misleading.

Maricopa County Election Department -Jan5th report, presentation and finding of actual facts…

..and by facts I’m not at all referring to “alternative facts” -facts- unfiltered and in stunning accuracy. As the newly elected Board of Supervisors’ (BoS), Chairman Bill Gates. As he stated throughout his opening comments and setting expectations of what Maricopa County citizenry and more broadly the electorate should expect during his term as BoS

“…set the bar for how governments serve” by being “transparent and timely in what we deliver” and fighting “distrust and disinformation.”

… [Chairman] Gates outlined his vision for how the nation’s fastest-growing county will defend democracy, grow the economy, and combat the continuing pandemic.

The fact is Maricopa County, AZ became a hotbed of amplifying Trump’s Big Lie —the most concerning part is the (soon to retire ETA 2023) Arizona State Senate President Karen Fann astonishing ability to portray herself as “an advocate for election integrity. After all Ms Fann was the signatory of the dubious Cyber Ninjas’ contract ¹ — I now refer you to the DECLARATION OF RYAN MACIAS, specifically start at paragraph # 9 et seq. The assertion is Cyber Ninjas’ failure to follow the industry’s standards of best practice isn’t my opinion, it’s written in the 48+ page Macias Declaration.

As some of you may recall, my affinity of the following statement “local news is the best news” — I highly recommend that you read The Arizona Republic because not only are the Plaintiffs, this local newspaper has done an exemplary job of true investigative journalism. The Republic’s January 6, 2022 Article provides readers with in-depth reporting and its definitely worth your time to read their article.

Ryan Randazzo @utilityreporter

Story is now live

azcentral.comThe Arizona Republic

→American Oversight (AO)←

There are some government advocacy groups that consistently push for transparency and accountability, both are not always mutually exclusive. When I was on Twitter, @weareoversight was one account I faithfully filed. This harkens all the way back to January 2017 - if you recall American Oversight has been one of the most effective watchdog groups. Again during Trump’s PTT —AO was one of the very first to report that Special Counsel Mueller’s Office had successfully asked the GSA to provide their office with PTT documents.

Again I’m not telling you that you need to follow AO. What I am telling you is they consistently publish deep dive investigations and are a reliable source for original/root documents — and factual information. I’ve taken the liberty of embedding two repositories of AO.

American Oversight Document Resources:

• FOIA requests, and court filings, click here to visit our Documents Library.

• To search within documents please try your search on Document Cloud.

• American Oversight Investigation into the Cyber Ninjas Fraudit, this is an excellent and exhaustive report and well worth the time to read their investigative report.

In May of 2021 AO first sued the Arizona Senate —AO’s May 2021 civil complaint was a laudable effort to shine a little bit of sunlight into Cyber Ninjas Fraudit. Lest we forget that the tax payers of Maricopa County, AZ paid for the Cyber Ninjas Fraudit. After a protracted series of motions and cross-motions started flying. On January 3, 2022 Counsel for Cyber Ninjas filed a Motion to Withdraw and the primary reason is Cyber Ninjas failure to pay for legal services rendered

The unfortunate reality is; AO, AZ-Tax Payers and the Maricopa County BoS still very little clarity about “the how” and “the why” this election fraudit was conducted.  To be clear Maricopa County AZ Elections Department “is the gold standard” in election integrity (right about now I wish I could simply retweet that long thread but la sigh that’s not an option) Meaning other Counties throughout the United States attempt to replicate Maricopa County’s — On August 19, 2021 the Arizona Secretary of State published this 45+ page report.

And in the spirit of attempting to be fair and balanced, I’ve taken the liberty of embedding the Arizona State Senate Republican Caucus “reports”…

• Cyber Ninjas Presentation 1

• Cyber Ninjas Presentation 2

• Cyber Ninjas Report, Vol. I

• Cyber Ninjas Report, Vol. II

• Cyber Ninjas Report, Vol. III

• Dec. 16, 2021: American Oversight v. Arizona Senate - Notice of Deposition of Cyber Ninjas CEO Doug Logan

• “hours after the court granted a request to formally add Cyber Ninjas — the lead contractor tasked with completing the ‘audit’..”

The core of AO’s lawsuit is, at the time Cyber Ninjas’ continual refusal to abided by numerous lower courts (remember this is State Court not Federal) which ordered Cyber Ninjas to produce responsive records. The Courts wholly rejected Cyber Ninjas argument that they are not only the custodians but also owners of the hundreds of thousands of pages of documents.

Maricopa County (AZ) Superior Court Cases

Below are the three cases (two appear to have been consolidated) litigated in Maricopa County Superior Court and/or Maricopa County Clerk of Superior Court (to be clear the previously embedded links are Public/Open Source links)

• Case No: CV2021-006646 Cyber Ninjas Inc (def) *

• Case No: CV2021-008265 Cyber Ninjas Inc (def)

• Case No: LC2021-000180 Cyber Ninjas Inc (def)

• Case No: CV2021-008265 American Oversight

*to be clear case ending in 006646 was voluntarily dismissed with prejudice by the parties, see 5/11/2021 ODI - Order Of Dismissal  -NOTE: WITH PREJUDICE. Let’s just cut to the chase -in the late evening of January 5, 2022 Cyber Ninjas filed their Response to Motion for Contempt.

Evidentiary Hearing on the plaintiffs’ “Renewed Motion to Hold Cyber Ninjas in Contempt for Its Failure to Comply with Court Orders to Produce Public Records” and “Request for Summary Adjudication of Plaintiffs’ Renewed Motion to Hold Cyber Ninjas in Contempt for Its Failure to Comply with Court Orders to Produce Public Records” on January 6, 2022 at 9:30 a.m.

But your honor the AZ State Senate owes us $100K

For example on page 3 of Cyber Ninjas response, they argue to the Court that the State Senate has refused to pay them $100,000 of the $150,000 contract, yet completely obfuscate the following fact; on October 26, 2021 the Arizona State Senate sent Cyber Ninjas a Notice of Material Breech -again this is import

Cyber Ninjas “is preparing to file for bankruptcy” & has failed to pay their current Attorney(s)

On page 4 of Cyber Ninjas Response, specifically I’d like to draw your attention to lines number 5 and 6. Right there they state that their current attorney recently filed a motion to withdraw and that Cyber Ninjas has failed to pay its current attorney. But on line number 7 —right there in black and white they disclosed that Cyber Ninjas “is preparing to file for bankruptcy” -also see Scribd link for Cyber Ninjas January 5, 2022 Response on Motion for Sanctions

During the January 6, 2022 hearing apparently Cyber Ninjas informed the Court that the company is “financially insolvent…has fired all of its employees…including CEO Douglas Jay Logan.” Perhaps I’m being too critical but I’m genuinely flabbergasted that while the $50K per day fine has been widely reported. I had a hard time finding any recent reporting that Cyber Ninjas are preparing to file for bankruptcy .

I ran numerous LexisNexis searches and I couldn’t locate a single article that discloses what’s on page 4, line # 7. Granted I suppose one could argue that the “financially insolvency” does imply bankruptcy…however according to this Vice News Report, which was originally published on November 21, 2021 —Doug Logan stated he was $2M in debt. Additionally

Additionally Florida’s Division of Corporations (FL-SCC) in 2015 Cyber Ninjas filed their Articles of Incorporation and then amended their filing because Cyber Ninjas, INC and Cyber Ninjas, LLC “inadvertently obtain a new (Federal) Employer Identification Number from the IRS and Cyber Ninjas’ odd way of remediating their mistake was to merge the two Cyber Ninjas (LLC and INC)

See Scribd Link for September 14, 2015 FL SCC “merger” filed by Cyber Ninjas, INC and Cyber Ninjas LLC —which clearly list Meghan Logan as an officer of both entities, where as Doug Logan is only listed as an officer for one of the entities. And to be clear I’m making an assumption that Meghan & Doug are related and are most likely married because each listed the same residential address in their 2015 FL-SCC filing…

If you run a search in FL-SCC you’ll note there are three Cyber Ninjas entries;

• CYBER NINJAS INC.- FEI/EIN Number: 47-2656570 (active) which filed their annual report on April 19, 2021

• CYBER NINJAS LLC -FEI/EIN Number:46-3834805 (inactive)

• CYBER NINJAS INC. - Document Number W15000013828 appears to be the original 2015 entity but was then superseded by EIN 47-26570

The first Cyber Ninjas Inc (listed above) appears to be the main and operational entity. And lastly if you review Cyber Ninjas current job openings —they currently have three positions available. However following language which is literally the last paragraph of the “Application Security Intern/Software Development Intern” and list North Carolina and Florida

…All candidates must have their primary work location be in one of the states we're currently setup to do business in and be legally able to work in the United States full-time.

• Application Security Intern / Software Development Intern

• Application Security Consultant

• Associate Cyber Security Consultant

and Your daily saltwater therapy…Happy Friday…

Here’s to the weekend because this week was an odd and stressful week so I’m going to take my own advice and take the weekend off. I’ve been burning the candles at both ends. I keep reminding myself that I only have six weeks left of current General Assembly’s 2022 legislative session.

And then my schedule can return to working only 60+hours a week. When I was renegotiating my contract renewal, I joking told my one of my bosses: I think we should contemplate amending the contact from “firm fix to time and materials”, clearly I was (sort of) joking but for a split second I could have sworn one of my bosses momentarily thought okay let’s do that if that means you’ll sign another 2 year non-compete contract.

file411_dc

A post shared by File411 (@file411_dc)

At any rate I hope this article helped you navigate the FUBAR that is Cyber Ninjas - oh and one last departing thought - let’s hypothetically agree that yes Cyber Ninjas is “is preparing to file for bankruptcy”

House Oversight is still waiting on Cyber Ninjas

and my follow up question is: is their intention Chapter 7 or Chapter 11…because I’m going to remind you that Cyber Ninjas ridiculous stonewalling and trumpian stalk tactics, bankruptcy won’t protect you from Congress.

• July 14, 2021 - House OverSight Committee Letter to Mr. Douglas Logan, Chief Executive Officer and Principal Consultant of Cyber Ninjas Inc. 

  • August 9, 2021, Cyber Ninjas responsive letter to the House OverSight Committee. Where their rebuttal to the Committee’s request was: “ raising spurious objections to all nine of the Committee’s requests, and produced 336 pages of publicly available material“

• August 22, 2021: House OverSight 2nd Letter to Mr. Douglas Logan, Chief Executive Officer and Principal Consultant of Cyber Ninjas, Inc.

  • August 27, 2021, Cyber Ninjas second responsive letter to the Committee, in which Cyber Ninjas “reiterating its objections to producing documents and claiming inaccurately that the Committee was “far outside its proper legislative jurisdiction.”

• September 24, 2021: House OverSight 3rd Letter to Mr. Douglas Logan, Chief Executive Officer and Principal Consultant, CyberNinjas, Inc.

To date I have been unable to locate any further communications from Cyber Ninjas and the House Oversight Committee or vice versa. Meaning it’s (currently) unclear what the status is in Cyber Ninjas responsive documents.

What happens next?

While that might be a very simple question, I think it is reasonable to expect that the future is largely determinative by what Cyber Ninjas does next. If you’re asking me what to look for, I can actually set your expectations that you should be on the lookout for Cyber Ninjas (purported) Bankruptcy petition. And if they actually file for Chapter 7 or Chapter 11. Should they actually file in Federal Bankruptcy Court then I would strongly recommend that you pay very close attention to their assets/liability matrix, specifically the matrix of creditors. And while most might not consider this, based largely upon yesterday’s hearing and disclosure. A party who misappropriates various Federal Bankruptcy protections.

Specifically using bankruptcy as a means to circumvent a Court’s Order, which levied a $50,000 per day until production of documents. The Court found Cyber Ninjas in contempt, that does not go well for the entity who’s filing for bankruptcy protection. I do think that the tax payers of Arizona should press lawmakers as to why they are stuck with paying for this fraudulent “election audit” —from the start this unnecessary and amateur “audit” was a waste of tax payer dollars and an incalculable amount of human capital resources. I do think State Senate President Karen Fann should face some type of personal sanction but again that’s my opinion and you are under zero obligation to agree with me. But that’s where I am given the amount of research and outside observation. The bigger issue/concern is other states who have already codified new laws which would allow any future coup/insurrection to override the will of their State’s electorate. That is something that should give all of us pause. Because even after January 6, 2021 our Democracy remains incredibly fragile. And we owe it to the next generation to hand them the precious gift of a shared democracy. Otherwise all the sacrifices made by our forebears will be for nothing.

Have a great weekend and see y’all on Monday or maybe over the weekend, predicate on finishing up the research project I’ve been working on.

-Filey

1. Of all the Letters of Engagement (LOE) and/or Memorandums of Understanding (MOU) and/or Statements of Work (SOW) —that I have read/edited throughout my career, Cyber Ninjas SOW is one of the most amateur SOWs I’ve read in my 18+ years. The arbitrary nonsensical language isn’t just fiscally irresponsible it was down right fraudulent. More concerning, is the lack of specificity, at it relates to; Cyber Ninjas’ fraudit methodology, data analysis, data retention (or lack thereof), chain of custody, and lack of security and mitigation efforts. This is likely one of the most underwhelming SOWs I’ve read in a very long time. Also in case you are concerned about the provenance of the embedded document - it’s legit👇🏻

https://www.clerkofcourt.maricopa.gov/home/showpublisheddocument/2557/637551085573500000