Fiction: George and the Philanthropath – Part IV. THE RECKONING (The System Turns)

This continues from Part III

ACT 7: The Reaper’s Bill Comes Due

“In which the sky falls in, by way of a most civilised email.”

Six months later and the studio is really performing well; we have a daily video hour going out with guests and a growing number of subscribers. The Twitter (X) and Instagram feeds are growing a great community of like-minded people, and we have mirrors of the videos going out on platforms popular in the alternative community like Telegram, Rumble, Bitchute and Odysee. Claire and I managed to cram in an amazing trip to a conference in Thailand, where we met a lot of really interesting and dynamic alternative web loggers and vloggers from which we managed to source one-off and regular reciprocal interview slots over the next few weeks and months. By the end of the conference, we had plans to meet many of those there at the next conference in the cycle in a month or two.

The world changed the day I arrived at the studio on a Monday morning and sat at my desk to open my emails and catch-up with what had happened over the weekend. The first email was from Corvina:

Subject: Our Agreement
George,
Your recent content has fundamentally failed to meet the standards envisioned in our agreement. I am therefore exercising the cancellation clause.
Please arrange for the full repayment of the $300,000 loan to be wired within seven days.
My lawyer will be in touch with the details.
Corvina

At first, I thought it was a joke or a phishing email. But I checked the sender email address and definitely it was hers. I sent a reply expressing my confusion and explaining how the money she sent was now fully invested in the studio and equipment and she couldn’t be serious and, in any case, I just didn’t have that sort of money laying around. The reply came within 15 minutes:

Subject: RE: Our Agreement
George,
Your situation is noted. However, the contract is clear, and the clause was reviewed by your own counsel, Mr. Jarvis.
The seven-day term is not negotiable. Failure to remit the full amount will result in immediate legal proceedings to enforce the default judgment and seize all secured assets, including intellectual property rights, as agreed.
There is nothing more to discuss.
Corvina

Not content with that, I tried calling several times in the next couple of hours but was diverted to voicemail on every occasion. I left messages and sent an SMS asking her to call—still nothing.

I was in shock. I sat looking at the computer screen hardly knowing what to think or where to start. Questions flooded my mind. How could this happen? Was she really serious? What had we covered in weblog and videos that could have caused this reaction? What moral or political red line had we crossed? The material was supposed to be alternative and even confronting—especially for normies.

Questions of the reality of what was happening fell away when just around mid-day a courier delivered a letter addressed to me personally. Opening it, it was on letter head from Corvina’s lawyer with a formal demand for repayment of the loan, citing some clauses in the contract which seemingly gave her the right to do so. Hands shaking, I read and re-read the letter hardly believing my eyes.

I fished the contract out of the still-new filing-cabinet behind Kate’s desk and scanned through the long and legalistic document for the clauses cited in the lawyer’s letter. There they were, just as stated. Reading the words in black and white, I felt a sudden touch of vertigo and had to put a hand out to hold on to the edge of Kate’s desk to settle myself until the room stopped spinning. I realised it was all some sort of joke, but it seemed the joke was on me.

My world collapsed.

ACT 8: The Illusion of Defence

“In which our hero places his trust in the law and finds it a most unreliable custodian.”

When I explained the happenings of the day to Claire that night, her immediate reaction was denial, “You lost what? No. That can’t be right. You must have read the email wrong, George. Check it again.” Then a beat of silence as the reality sets in and, “She wouldn’t do this to us … How could you be so stupid? We had a good life! And who does that witch think she is?” And finally, “This can’t be legal. We have to fight this!”

The next day, not knowing who else to turn to, I phoned Sam Jarvis LLB, the solicitor who had helped us out in checking the contract in the first place. I couldn’t be angry with him—he had explained the contract to us, and I had read it myself before agreeing to sign. It was just that, I had never imagined that we would end up in this position. Sam was very sympathetic and appeared quite shocked at the turn of events. He thought that the matter might not be as simple as the contract clauses appeared to imply, what with case law and legal precedents and all that.

But he did warn me that, “Given the complexity and the sums involved, this is now a matter for a barrister specialising in commercial fraud and contract law. I can recommend a few names, but I must be frank: their fees will be substantial and the prospect is challenging. You should prepare yourself for a long, expensive fight with no guarantee of success.” Given our desire to get the matter sorted out as fast as possible, he suggested I approach a Mr. Craig Sterling, LLB KC in the same law firm, “He’s highly experienced and very knowledgeable, you can’t do better.”

My meeting with Sterling was two days later, he intimated that he’d had a briefing from Jarvis and had looked over the contract and the correspondence from both Corvina and her lawyer. “Her demand for repayment is not just vague; it’s legally meaningless. A ‘failed to meet the standards envisioned’ is a subjective whim, not a material breach. This proves the clause was never about performance, but control. It was a predatory tool from the start.” He outlined a bold strategy to not just defend, but counter-sue for fraudulent misrepresentation. “We will argue the entire agreement is unenforceable due to undue influence and unconscionability. She exploited your grief and ambition. We will reframe you, George, from a debtor to the victim of a calculated fraud, seeking damages for your loss of reputation, your potentially lost IP, and the profound distress this has caused you and your family.” He said he would file the initial counter-papers by the end of the day.

As I left his office Sterling offered, “Leave it to me, we’ll get this thrown out” and I felt an immediate lifting of the weight from my heart. Things might turnout ok after all.

The false saviour is supplied.

Do you trust Sterling? Is there any way out? The system itself becomes the trap in Part V: The Lawfare Trap.