Kim Schmitz poses beside a car in Hong Kong. Photo: Kim Dotcom
Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom is taking his public-relations campaign to Twitter, where he’s busy poking fun at the U.S. effort to try him for criminal copyright infringement. He is also posting pictures of his wife, children and luxury cars from his mansion in New Zealand, where he is on bail awaiting an extradition hearing.
In just a few days and 76 tweets, Dotcom’s Twitter account has garnered over 30,000 followers. Dotcom, for his part, only follows President Barack Obama.
Dotcom’s associates Finn Batato, Matthias Ortmann, and Bram van der Kolk, who are co-accused of copyright conspiracy by the U.S., also feature in his Twitter timeline.
The tweet storm comes amid a new round of legal wrangling in Dotcom’s federal case in Virginia. His defense team, lead by Ira Rothken, filed a rebuttal (.pdf) in an ongoing fight over the personal liability of Dotcom and the others, who prosecutors says are responsible for around $500 million in damages. The defense also argues that the court has no personal jurisdiction over the defendants.
According to Rothken, who visited New Zealand three days ago, the U.S. froze the assets of Megaupload without serving the company itself, which Rothken argues should force the dismissal of the entire case.
The Dotcom legal team also objects to a U.S. government request that a hearing scheduled for Friday be adjourned due to members of the prosecution team being out of town on that date. “[T]he government should not be permitted to forestall adjudication” after it has “laid waste to Defendants’ business, deprived them of tens of millions of dollars in assets along with their ability to earn a living and branded them as criminals whose liberty is confined.”