Earlier this year NewULife filed a lawsuit against a former distributor for claims made against the company.

What differentiated this case was that the cited claims were taken from private Facebook chats, which neither party had provided to NewULife.

Kevin Thompson, who is representing defendant Georgia Hargett (aka Georgia Balsley), recently provided some updates on the case.

In a sworn statement made in connection to the case, NewULife distributor Debra Ambrose has admitted to providing NewULife with Hargett’s private Facebook chat logs.

But how did Ambrose get access to the logs to begin with?

In her sworn statement Ambrose (right) states that she worked with Hargett, who she claims

had trouble with technology and could not handle her social media accounts on her own.

Accordingly, Hargett provided Ambrose “all her relevant passwords”. In doing so, Ambrose claims Hargett

expressly granted (her) permission to access her social media accounts and website, including her Facebook Messenger account.

At some point Ambrose states she was told by other NewULife distributors that Hargett was “telling people that NewULife CEO Alex Goldstein was a fraud”.

Ambrose states she confronted Hargett, who denied the claims.

Ambrose states she then

discovered messages on (Hargett’s) Facebook Messenger account … saying negative things about NewULife and people affiliates with NewULife.

I took screenshots of several of those messages and provided them to NewULife corporate.

Some of those messages were attached to the Complaint in (NewULife’s) lawsuit.

Ambrose doesn’t state why she was poking around in Hargett’s private Facebook Messenger conversations, but maintains she ‘never gained unauthorized access to Hargett’s accounts‘.

In a separate sworn statement, Hargett identifies Ambrose as her NewULife upline (the distributor who recruited her).

Hargett claims that while she gave Ambrose access to her YouTube account, she “vehemently denies” giving her ‘authorization to access and/or read any of (her) Facebook Messenger messages‘.

Although not uncommon, Hargett made the security mistake of using the same login credentials between her YouTube and Facebook accounts.

Nevertheless, as asserted by Hargett;

Many of my Facebook Messenger messages contained highly confidential information, including extremely sensitive health information that many contacts chose to share with me.

Because these messages contained such health information and I valued the confidence in which people shared this sensitive information, I have never freely provided any one with authorization to access my Facebook or Facebook messenger.

A chat screenshot exhibit filed by Hargett certainly appears to support her claim.

To me it seems pretty clear, unless Ambrose can provide evidence of

  1. Hargett giving her explicit permission to access her Facebook account; and/or
  2. evidence of Ambrose performing any social media marketing activities related to NewULife on Hargett’s Facebook account,

then she was clearly not authorized to access the account. Nor was there any implied understanding that Ambrose would access Hargett’s social media accounts beyond YouTube.

I’m not sure what the legal implications of Ambrose’s conduct are, but regardless it’s still a pretty shocking abuse of trust.

First in accessing private messages and then copying them and providing them to a third-party.

And then to have those private messages be the foundation of a public defamation lawsuit? What on Earth are NewULife thinking?

Kevin Thompson also shared that a filed Anti-SLAPP motion to dismiss claims against co-defendant Patti Sinclair was granted on one count.

On three remaining counts the motion was denied.

As recounted by Thompson;

This case is not solely about those communications (though those facts SHOCK THE CONSCIENCE).

It’s a case about a company facing serious challenges domestically desperately doing its best to intimidate its former reps (my clients) from sharing their opinions both publicly AND privately.

NewULife is a rabid dog doing much more harm than good.

NewULife’s lawsuit against Sinclair and Hargett continues.