Michael Arnstein, owner of New York-based jewelry brand Natural Sapphire Company in Manhattan, has pleaded guilty to forging a judge’s signature to get Google to delete negative reviews of the company. According to Gem Konnect, he is facing “a large fine and possible jail time”.
The story began when Arnstein hired web developer Prashant Telang in 2004 to register domain names for the Natural Sapphire Company. Telang was later fired, then reportedly “sabotaged the company’s website by redirecting its homepage to a forum on which he had written dozens of negative reviews”. Arnstein sued Telang in a New York court and the case was settled after the judge ordered Telang to delete 54 negative reviews. However, some negative reviews continued to pop up on the company’s Google search results. In 2014, Arnstein asked an employee to digitally alter the judge’s old court order so that it would appear that the judge signed the order recently.
Arnstein was “caught” by Google, who reported the matter to law enforcement. Arnstein pleaded guilty and awaits sentencing “by the same judge who settled the original case”.
