William B. May International Con Artists, Unethical, Scammers, Frauds, Rip-offs, Pederasts New York New York

The first thing readers need to understand is that character assassination on the Internet is increasingly widespread. Defamatory texts can be posted with little difficulty. Here, in the United States, the targets of such postings have no recourse against the carriers, because American laws absolves Web sites from any type of accountability whatsoever. How would you feel if you suddenly read a totally false article about you, that could have a drastic impact on your future life, and there was absolutley nothing you could do about? That is the case with this article.

I have know Stephen Leopold for more than 25 years on a professional and personal basis. Stephen Leopold was never convicted of, nor ever charged with child molestation or any related pedofile activity in 1984 or any other year for that matter. How do I know? A complete police record search was done on Mr. Leopold for the year 1984 and prior and subsequent years. No report, no conviction, no negative information on interaction with children of any nature whatsoever was ever found. The writer of this accusation is incorrect and has no poof source whatsoever of these false charges.

Stephen Leopold is one of the most respected professionals in the commercial real estate field. He has been referenced in numerous books, is considered a mentor to many world renouned real estate leaders and is retained by several international companies as their real estate consultant. He is on the board of directors on major foundations and devoted times to the arts and charities. The last thing he would ever do is cheat recent college grads out of earned money. He knows that what goes around, comes around. He would not risk a great reputation developed over years of hard work to cheat a few kids out of a few dollars. Even the suggestion he would ever do so is preposterous.

It is a shame that anyone can make false accusations about another person without proof and not be held accountable. The internet, while a wonderful tool, does have very serious weaknesses and this is one of them.

I would be pleased to stand behind my words with support documentation for anyone who doubts anything that I have said.

To whom it may concern:

With reference to a posting concerning Stephen Leopold on the web site RipOffReport.com:

I was tremendously saddened by what I read on RipOffReport in reference to Stephen Leopold, Michael Leary, and William B. May International. We know that the Internet has become a spawning ground for lies, slander and obscene libel, but when we see text on a web site that targets a company and individuals whom we ourselves know well, and know well to be above reproach, we can only say, Things have gotten way out of hand on the Net.

Even the most libertarian among us, even the greatest supporters of freedom of expression and freedom of the press among us (and I count myself one of that liberty-loving group), must say in circumstances such as these that, There ought to be a law. Because here is an example of a company and individuals who have never done anything remotely illegal, yet they are being branded on a public medium available to literally the entire world as heinous criminals and (wait for it!) monsters. This is worse than sad; it is sick. Permit me to set the record straight.

First, full disclosure. I am an old friend of Stephen Leopold. I have known him since we were students together at McGill University. My first reaction upon reading the piece concerning him on RipOffReport was profound compassion for my friend and what he must be going through in the face of such an absurd and repulsively malicious lie.

I will take the trouble to discredit only the ugliest statement published on RipOffReport, because it is the easiest to unmask as a shameful smear. The anonymous coward writes that Stephen Leopold was convicted of a particularly heinous crime in 1984. Two minutes of research into the spectacular business career of Stephen Leopold would suffice to debunk such poison. In 1984 Stephen was still in Montreal, at the head of a company he had founded six years earlier. The company in 1984 employed some twenty individuals, and Stephen had been recognized numerous times in the newspapers of the city (Montreal has four daily newspapers) as an extraordinary real estate innovator and dealmaker. He was a rising influence in his native city. He was a business celebrity. He was also a well known bon vivant and art collector. Furthermore, he was remembered for the extraordinary role that he had played in, of all things, Watergate, over ten years earlier. (He had gone to Washington while still a law student, offered himself as a volunteer, and rose by dint of his incredible energy to become an investigator on Sam Ervin's Senate Committee.) And there's more: he had served as executive assistant to Brian Mulroney during Mulroney's first run for the leadership of his party. In 1984, Mulroney happened to be Prime Minister of Canada. The point I am making is simply this: if Stephen had EVEN BEEN ACCUSED of the type of crime your cowardly correspondent alleges he was convicted of in 1984, Stephen's name and face would have been plastered over the front pages of all of Montreal's newspapers and the story would have been treated as a juicy scandal right across the country. All you have to do to substantiate what I'm saying is read some of the articles about Stephen found on the web site of William B. May, at www.wbmayre.com

No one has ever even INTIMATED that Stephen Leopold has ever done ANYTHING wrong, let alone been convicted of a crime, and let alone being convicted of something as ugly as the obvious libel that appears on RipOffReport.

It appears that someone is trying to use the Internet to defame or get even for some reason with Stephen and/or Michael Leary and/or William B. May International. Well, ladies and gentlemen of RipOffReport, if I may address myself directly to you, whoever that someone is, you have allowed them to use your site as a toilet into which they have dumped a stool of venom.

Michael Carin