LOS ANGELES—The attorney representing Alexander Rhodes, the founder of the so-called pornography addiction self-help group NoFap, demanded $20 million from the academic publisher Taylor & Francis to avoid being named in a lawsuit that would accuse the company of racketeering and a civil conspiracy to defame.
Taylor & Francis and its parent company, Informa, were later named in a lawsuit filed on behalf of Rhodes and NoFap LLC against Aylo, the parent company of Pornhub, and a class of defendants, including two scientists critical of NoFap, and the University of California, Los Angeles, for simply employing one of the named scientists.
Retraction Watch reported yesterday that, in August 2024, an attorney representing the NoFap founder and his firm, David Kobylinski, sent a letter to Taylor & Francis.
"Please note that it is my client's intent to commence a lawsuit against Pornhub in the immediate future, and we plan to name Taylor and Francis as a co-defendant," he wrote. "If your organization would like to avoid the expense and burden of litigation, kindly note that my clients have authorized me to extend [this] demand."
Rhodes sought $20 million in compensation, a retraction of the article written by the two scientists who wrote critically of NoFap in the Taylor & Francis-published peer-reviewed journal Deviant Behavior in 2023, and to disclose "academic fraud and the clear and undeniable conflicts of interest held by the authors of the article."
Dr. Nicole Prause, a bioinformatics programmer at the University of California, Los Angeles, and Dr. David Ley, a private practice clinical psychologist, were the authors.
AVN reported extensively on the lawsuit against Aylo and the defendant class. Rhodes alleges that a scheme operated and funded by Aylo was intended to discredit him and the claims of his organization. Further, the attorney for Rhodes then claimed racketeering and a civil conspiracy under federal RICO statutes, alleging this scheme.
Prause and Ley are academic clinicians who are skeptical of health claims associated with NoFap. In the latest developments, all defendants in the case have filed or concurred in motions to dismiss. Rhodes and his counsel, Pittsburgh-based attorneys and brothers Peter and David Kobylinski, lied in court filings, AVN reported.
