Capistrano Unified Trustee John Alpay has disabled a misleading website address that impersonated a group of his critics but instead sent visitors to a site supporting his re-election campaign.
he owned www.holdcusdaccountable.com, which is identical to the real Hold CUSD Accountable site, except it uses a dot-com suffix instead of dot-org.
According to Internet hosting site GoDaddy.com, the misleading website was purchased in June, just a day after Hold CUSD Accountable announced its formation to seek change within the Capistrano Unified School District.
Alpay's site redirected traffic to the Capistrano Unified Children First website, which endorses his re-election bid. But the holdcusdaccountable.com URL remained in the address bar.
A lawyer for the real Hold CUSD Accountable sent a letter to Alpay earlier this week, demanding the impostor site be disabled. An attorney for Alpay responded with his own letter Thursday.
“Any redirect of the website has been discontinued, without any admission,” wrote David Gabor, who practices in Los Angeles. “He has categorically not used the website for any purpose, much less as a ‘cybersquatter.’ ”
The letter paints Hold CUSD Accountable attorney Wayne Tate as a bully.
“[Y]our continued efforts to tar Mr. Alpay’s name and reputation, and your bullying conduct regarding this matter speaks volumes,” Gabor wrote.
Tate responded that Alpay was the one acting like a bully.
“If I wanted to bully people, I could take lessons from John Alpay," Tate said. "Look at how he treated poor Ken Starks.”
Alpay's deceptive site is one of eight misleading URLs that impersonated various critics of Capistrano Unified but instead took visitors to sites run Children First, Alpay or school board President Gary Pritchard, who is also seeking re-election. The other sites were disabled last week, and he had anything to do with them.
