To all Ducks
Today, October 29, 2010, Judge Rick Brown of the Riverside County Superior Court entered a verdict for the plaintiffs in a certified national class action lawsuit. The court entered a verdict against Heidi Diaz the owner of the diet website Kimkins.com for fraud and false advertising. The court awarded the class members restitution in the amount of $1,824,210.39. The court also awarded an additional $500,000 in punitive damages as well as attorney fees. The court then issued a temporary restraining order to freeze all of the assets of Ms. Diaz.
Most notably, the court also imposed an injunction requiring Heidi Diaz to post on all of her websites that: (1) she lied about her weight loss; (2) she lied about her after diet pictures; (3) she lied about testimonials on her website; and (4) she lied about the photographs used with the testimonials to promote the Kimkins website.
An injunction was also issued to prevent Heidi Diaz from contacting, harassing or cyberbullying the plaintiffs and the witnesses. A formal judgment will be entered before November 19, 2010.
The original complaint was filed over three years ago on October 15, 2007. I want to thank everyone who supported the class action lawsuit. The Ducks were wonderful. I met a lot of great people and made a lot of new friends fighting for a good cause. Heidi Diaz lied on her website and made the fatal mistake of lying in the courtroom. You cannot trust Heidi Diaz. I anticipate more legal (illegal) maneuvering by Heidi Diaz to evade the judgment. We will be prepared and I will be relentless. Again, I thank all you.
John E. Tiedt
TIEDT & HURD
Indeed, John, we know you WILL be relentless! You are our champion!
Note: 'Ducks' are those who worked together to find out the truth in the Kimkins matter, to pierce the "fake nice" facade and expose the many lies of Heidi Diaz, to dig up and document evidence against her, and to warn people through various online and media sources about the dangers of believing Diaz or following her dangerous advice.
The term derives from the name of an early anti-Kimkins blogger (or team of bloggers) who posted under the name "Just Ducky." As the Kimkins controversy grew, the "Just Ducky" blog became a locus to which various sources would feed undercover information for immediate and wide distribution. It also became a significant thorn in the side of Heidi Diaz, for it seemed she could scarcely whisper a lie or concoct a scheme in her most private lair which would not soon be shouted from the virtual housetops. As Diaz' animosity and paranoia about Ducky's secret identity grew, she began to suspect almost everyone of being Ducky. Before long, she was banning paid "lifetime" members on mere suspicions of being Ducky, consorting with Ducky, or being a Ducky sympathizer. Most famously, she banned a Kimkins member merely for using a stock yellow-rubber-ducky avatar supplied by the Kimkins site itself. In a show of solidarity, many people began using duck avatars and adopted the label proudly, and soon a whole culture developed around the inside joke.
The Ducks were a diverse group, not always unified and not always on the right track. Whatever else they might have been, though, one thing is certain --- the Ducks were determined! Heidi Diaz thought the Ducks would lose interest, give up, shut up, and move on. Wrong! Most Ducks quit quacking after a while, but, as Ms. Diaz has discovered, they were still busily paddling under the surface.
To all those who were manipulated and deceived, belittled and berated, used and abused, endangered and victimized, conned and defrauded by Heidi Diaz, this finding of the court and this expression of thanks from John Tiedt serve as a measure of vindication. Let honor be given where honor is due.
3 comments:
Hey Becky,
I just stumbled across this blog when I was searching for something else and it brought back a lot of memories. Can you believe that after all this nonsense that stupid site is still up and running? It must be a ghost town.
Yes, Heidi Diaz just keeps on rolling along. Maybe it's easy for someone who, as was reported, has been diagnosed a malignant narcissist.
Back when the site hit big with the magazine cover and members were pouring in, she once sort of laughingly complained to her admins that a certain affiliate had drained off a bunch of money (like 2-3 million dollars) and deposited it offshore in the Grand Caymans. Her lol attitude seemed so strange at the time. We later found out that the affiliate name was just another one of her many aliases, and that she was the one secretly socking away the dough ahead of the inevitable lawsuit. When she was found guilty of fraud and ordered to pay a judgment and court fees, of course she claimed that she didn't have enough money to pay. She lost the lawsuit, but she still chuckles to herself and thinks she won the game. No shame, no guilt.
I don't know how popular her site it anymore. She's probably still using her crooked tactics of sock puppet postings on craigslist, cruise sites, wedding and dating sites, etc., to draw in members. She technically cleaned up the diet, made some allowances to make it safer, at least on the front page. I don't know if it is still as drastic and extreme inside or not. If she is getting the results she claims (and that is a very big IF, given her admitted propensity to lie) then it is probably still just about as extreme and metabolism-destroying as ever.
Sad.
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