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UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

EASTERN DISTRICT OF KENTUCKY

NORTHERN DIVISION AT COVINGTON SARAH JONES, a/k/a/ JANE DOE, Plaintiff, v. DIRTY WORLD ENTERTAINMENT RECORDINGS LLC dba THEDIRT.COM, HOOMAN KARAMIAN aka NIK RICHIE aka CORBIN GRIMES, DIRTY WORLD, LLC dba THEDIRTY.COM, and DIRTY WORLD ENTERTAINMENT, LLC dba THEDIRTY.COM, Defendants.

Case No. 2:09-cv-00219-WOB Judge William O. Bertelsman AFFIDAVIT OF NIK LAMAS-RICHIE IN SUPPORT OF DEFENDANTS DIRTY WORLD, LLC AND NIK RICHIE’S MOTION FOR SUMMARY JUDGMENT

I, NIK LAMAS-RICHIE, declare as follows:

My name is NIK LAMAS-RICHIE. I am a resident of the State of California, am over the age of

18 years, and if called to testify in court I could and would truthfully testify to the following

information based upon my own personal knowledge.

1. I am currently employed as the manager of Defendant DIRTY WORLD, LLC

(“Dirty World”) which owns and operates the website www.TheDirty.com. In addition to acting

as editor-in-chief of www.TheDirty.com, I am also the founder and creator of a website called

www.DirtyScottsdale.com which I started in March 2007.

2. When I first started www.DirtyScottsdale.com, the site was focused almost

entirely on Scottsdale, Arizona. Initially, I used the site as a forum to post my thoughts,

comments and observations about a variety of topics that I felt were interesting, important, or

deserving of criticism such as certain “fake” (a/k/a “dirty”) residents of Scottsdale.

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3. The typical subject matter for my early posts on www.DirtyScottsdale.com was

anything “dirty” or humorous, such as drunken people making fools of themselves in public; i.e.,

an intoxicated college student urinating on a public sidewalk or someone passed out on a toilet in

a bar.

4. Another favorite subject was the “$30k millionaire”—this is a derogatory term

used to refer to young people (usually males in their early 20s) who live far beyond their

financial means—driving expensive cars they cannot afford and living a lavish lifestyle often

funded by maxed-out credit cards. I focused my criticism on $30k millionaires because I

genuinely believe this overly materialistic lifestyle is socially destructive and morally

unacceptable. For those same reasons, I also frequently posted stories about “beer-bong-

chugging athletes, puking co-eds, drunken drivers and provocatively posing clubbers”; basically

anyone who acted stupidly or attempted to attract unwarranted attention to themselves was a

potential subject of discussion and criticism on www.DirtyScottsdale.com.

5. I started the www.DirtyScottsdale.com website in my spare time, with almost no

money, working mainly from home. At first, the site had only a tiny amount of traffic – maybe a

few hundred visitors per day. Within a very short period of time, the site began receiving local

media coverage from television stations such as Fox 10 and ABC 15 in Phoenix, both of which

ran lengthy news stories about the site in mid-2007.

6. In 2008, the site began receiving national media coverage, and as a result our

traffic exploded literally overnight. In December 2008, the Arizona Republic ran an article about

me and the site, naming me “One of 2008’s Most Intriguing Arizonans” and stating: “what

makes him interesting is that his site has prompted a dialogue about public and private space and

about what is and is not celebrity.”

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7. As of September 2011, the website now receives an average of 18 million hits per

month or around 600,000 hits per day. As the site increased in popularity, it expanded to cover

more than 50 different U.S. cities and more than 20 cities in Canada. In the process, the site

adopted a more geographically neutral name—www.TheDirty.com.

8. As the site has grown, its focus and format has changed. In the beginning, I

created nearly all of the content posted on the site and, in fact, it was impossible for users to

upload anything directly to the site. This is no longer true. For the last several years, users of

the site (who colloquially refer to themselves as “The Dirty Army”) have been permitted to

“submit dirt” which can include news, photos, video or text. Users can also post their own

comments about material submitted by others. The majority of stories, photos and material

appearing on www.TheDirty.com are now comprised of submissions uploaded directly to the site

by third party users.

9. Users of www.TheDirty.com may submit posts to the site on any topic

whatsoever.

10. As of September 2011, www.TheDirty.com contains approximately 90,000

unique posts on a wide variety of topics and millions of comments from users.

11. Many posts submitted to www.TheDirty.com relate to stories, news, gossip and

other forms of commentary about local individuals who are not public figures, but not all posts

are of this type. On the contrary, in addition to posts about “non-celebrities”, material appearing

on www.TheDirty.com covers an extremely broad variety of more ordinary topics including, but

not limited to:

a. President Barack Obama; see Exhibit A;

b. Donald Trump’s presidential campaign; see Exhibit B;

c. Politicians playing solitaire; see Exhibit C;

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d. Sports, including the 2010 World Series; see Exhibit D;

e. Stories involving the arrest of celebrities; see Exhibit E;

f. L.A. Lakers basketball player Kobe Bryant; see Exhibit F;

g. Falling values of U.S. dollars vs. Canadian dollars; see Exhibit G;

h. Myself; see Exhibit H.

12. Attached hereto as Exhibit I are screenshots showing the form located at

http://thedirty.com/submit_a_tip/ that a visitor to the site can use to submit news, tips, or similar

“dirt” to the site. As reflected in these screenshots, the form is 100% content neutral; it does not

ask users to post anything about any particular individual, nor does the site suggest what the

author should say. The only instructions given by the site are as follows: “Tell us what’s

happening. Remember to tell us Who, What, When, Where, Why.” The form reflected in Exhibit

I was in place on the site during all of 2009–10.

13. As part of the submission process, users are asked to enter a “title” for their

submission, along with basic information about the material they are submitting. Specifically,

users are asked to identify the “City”, “College”, and “Category” for their submission.

14. In terms of categories, the user is required to pick from a list of more than 40

different options provided by the site which include: “I HAVE NO IDEA”, “Business”, “News”,

“Spring Break” and so forth.

15. Regardless of the category selected by a user for his/her submission, in most cases

I will briefly review each new submission to ensure that inappropriate or unduly offensive

material is removed such as threats of violence, profanity, racial slurs, etc. Also, as a general

rule I will typically make a short, one-line comment about the post with some sort of humorous

or satirical observation, but I never materially change, create, or modify any part of the user-

generated submission, nor do I “fact check” user submissions for accuracy

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16. I am aware that this case arises from two posts on www.TheDirty.com about the

Plaintiff. The first post was submitted to the site by a third party on December 7, 2009 bearing

the title “The Dirty Bengals Cheerleader” (the “December 7th Post”). The second post was

submitted to the site on January 9, 2010 bearing the title: “**Update** Graham Does it Again”

(the “January 9th Post”). A true and correct copy of the December 7th Post (excluding subsequent

comments by users which I do not understand to be part of this action) is attached hereto as

Exhibit J, and a copy of the January 9th Post is attached hereto as Exhibit K.

17. I did not create or modify any part of the December 7th or its title, nor did I create

or modify any part of the January 9th Post or its title. The text in the body of each Post and the

title was created entirely by a third party user of www.TheDirty.com and the Post was published

exactly as it was submitted to the site without any changes other than an introduction which read

“THE DIRTY ARMY:” to accurately reflect that each Post was submitted to the site by a third

party user.

18. After the December 7th Post was submitted, I made a brief satirical comment

about it which read: “Why are all high school teachers freaks in the sack?- nik”.

19. This comment was not a factual assertion about Plaintiff’s character or chastity,

but rather was intended as a rhetorical and hyperbolic expression of my opinion about a common

stereotype—i.e., that high school teachers often portray themselves as conservative while

privately they may have a sexually adventurous side.

20. I do not personally know and has never knowingly spoken to the author of either

of these posts.

21. I did nothing to induce the authors to create these posts about Plaintiff.

22. Prior to the submission of this post, I did not know Plaintiff, had never met or

spoken to Plaintiff, and had no idea who Plaintiff was.

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23. Although I believed that I was not legally required to do so, after I became aware

that Plaintiff had commenced litigation concerning the December 7th and January 9th Posts, I

removed them from www.TheDirty.com.

Pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1746, I declare under penalty of perjury under the laws of the United

States of America that the foregoing is true and correct.

EXECUTED ON: September 20, 2011.

Exhibit A

Exhibit B

Exhibit C

Exhibit D

Exhibit E

Exhibit F

Exhibit G

Exhibit H

Exhibit I

Exhibit J

Exhibit K