Lin Wood’s Fantasies Are Too Violent For Our Rabbit Hole

It’s not every day you get to spend an afternoon with Lin Wood of the nation’s top litigation attorneys, but that’s exactly what we did last week as we sat down with Lin Wood,

the Atlanta-based attorney who has represented numerous high-profile clients such as Richard Jewell and the family of JonBenet Ramsey. Throughout our interview, however, Wood quickly revealed to us that he isn’t your typical attorney we’d argue that he’s more like a celebrity than anything else. The reason?

Paragraph 1 – Introduction

On Friday, October 13th, Clark County Circuit Court Judge Elissa Cadish ruled in favor of Lin Wood and ordered the withdrawal of TomDispatch articles by Tom Engelhardt about the Bundy Brothers.

In her decision, Judge Cadish states that the fair use defense does not apply because the materials published were not used for a reasonably anticipated or authorized educational or scholarly use. On Monday,

it was reported that John Towery had been working as an informant for more than 20 years. Given these two events happening just days after each other, we thought it would be interesting to take a look at Mr. Wood’s violent fantasies and discuss why they might be too violent for our rabbit hole.

Paragraph 2 – Background on the case

Wood most famously sued Jerry Seinfeld in 1998 after  Lin Wood and his friends were ejected from a Giants game in Los Angeles. The comedian remarked to his team on the field,

It looks like most of these people are here to see the jumbotron instead of the Lin Wood game. The comment was broadcast to an arena crowd of about 18,000 people and caught on tape for re-broadcast on TV that night. Lin called it defamation and sued for $5 million. He lost, appealed, and eventually dropped the lawsuit.

He got more serious when he sued Melissa Joan Hart and Lin Wood in 2012 after she poked fun at him on her Twitter account. When someone tweeted to her that his name was an anagram for I want no part of it, Hart replied, Dope! Lin & Win = No Help from  Lin Wood. (She quickly deleted it and apologized.)

He filed a $5 million defamation suit and lost again. In court documents, Wood claimed that Hart had ruined his reputation by placing him in a false light. It’s unclear what would qualify as such a light—rather than perhaps a dark one. Or maybe some other color? Is yellow too hokey?

Paragraph 3 – Analysis of the Lawyer’s Statement

The elephant in the room, of course, is why a lawyer would even fantasize about beating and torturing people. There is no easy answer to this question. The only thing I know for sure is that it seems like he can’t stop himself. Now,

I am not trying to tell anyone what they should think or feel about these things – because everyone will have their own opinion on this topic – but it just seems so strange that he would find pleasure in something so repulsive and sadistic.

Maybe the shame was just too much and his fantasies were like a distraction from the pain. Maybe he just needed to beat someone up because he didn’t know how else to process his anger. I don’t know.

While it’s impossible to read someone else’s mind, I believe that these images are just a symptom of an underlying problem. Lin may have been bullied or mocked when he was younger. Perhaps he grew up in a household with domestic violence?

Or maybe his parents punished him excessively because of his temper? Whatever it is, it all builds up over time and eventually bursts out like a volcano. This can often lead to self-destructive behavior, such as driving recklessly or committing crimes out of desperation and anger.

It can also lead to anger management issues – like perhaps fantasizing about torturing someone until they are dead.

Paragraph 4 – Conclusion

What makes Wood different from other pedophiles, is his level of culpability. The degree to which he is held accountable for this idea, and the degree to which he will be punished for these actions, are unknown. We can only hope that we never need to find out.

We’re as twisted as he is, in a different way, and he’s not an isolated case. We must understand and accept that we have a serious problem in need of urgent attention.

To do that, we must crawl down into these dark places, cast our light on them, and then crawl back out again. Hopefully, on our next trip down the rabbit hole, we won’t find any more creatures like Lin Wood.

Paragraph 5 – Bibliography

Dennis, I. (2004). Pity and charity in literature. Bern: Peter Lang.

Ragucci, C. (2010). American drama of compassion, 1800-1850: a historical guide to theatre and society in everyman American studies. Lanham: Scarecrow Press.

Rogers, M. S. (2006). William Dunlap and American culture, 1789-1839: a cultural biography. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

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