Magistrate Judge Grants Fraud Plaintiff's Ex Parte Application for Expedited Discovery

U.S. Magistrate Judge Maria Audero granted plaintiff Damien Sabella’s ex parte application for expedited discovery in his fraud case against 10 John Does in U.S. District Court for Central California in Los Angeles, said her Monday order (docket 2:23-cv-09907).

Sabella’s Nov. 22 complaint alleges the Doe defendants accessed his Coinbase account without his authorization, converted the funds into Bitcoin (BTC) and transferred them out of his account (see 2311270040). Two private investigators Sabella hired have been unable to ascertain the identities of those responsible for accessing his account and converting the funds, said the order. He now moves for leave to take “limited early discovery” to investigate and learn the identities of the Doe defendants through multiple third-party subpoenas, the order said.

Sabella seeks subpoenas to Bandwidth.com, Twilio International and Onvoy, the service providers of three VoIP numbers, to obtain identifying information of those using them; to Coinbase to get identifying information on the entities controlling wallets 4-13; and to Binance for identifying information for entities controlling wallets 1 and 2, the bank account to which cash was transferred after the cash was converted from BTC that was held in the Binance wallet, and the person responsible for initiating the transfer, the order said.

The Los Angeles County resident also seeks subpoenas to Hostwinds, owner of the IP address associated with oauthcoinbase.com to get identifying information on the entity using and billed for service to that IP address; to Enom, the company the domain “oauthcoinbase.com” was registered with to obtain identifying information regarding the entity that owns and is billed for registration of that domain; and to Surfshark, the owner of a hosting IP address that accessed Sabella’s Coinbase account to get identifying information of the user who accessed his Coinbase account, said the order.

To justify ex parte relief, the evidence must show that the moving party’s cause will be irreparably prejudiced if the underlying motion is heard according to regular noticed motion procedures, and the moving party must establish that he is “without fault in creating the crisis that requires ex parte relief, or that the crisis occurred as a result of excusable neglect," the order said.

Sabella contends ex parte relief is appropriate in this case because if he sought relief by a regularly noticed motion, it wouldn’t be heard before his April 28 deadline to serve Doe defendants. That wouldn't give him time to issue and receive responses to the proposed discovery and serve the Doe defendants, and the court would dismiss the action under Rule 4(m), the order said.

The plaintiff also asserts that the circumstances giving rise to the need for ex parte relief weren’t his fault, given that he hired two investigators and proceeded with “diligence” in attempting to learn the defendants' identities, the order said. Sabella also argued that the fairness concerns typically implicated by ex parte relief don’t apply in this case because the Doe defendants haven’t been identified or served, it said.

The court concluded Sabella provided sufficient evidence that he would be prejudiced if the application were heard according to regular noticed motion procedures, and he was without fault in creating “the crisis” that requires ex parte relief, the order said. The plaintiff must submit a status report every 60 days, beginning May 8, informing the court about the status of service of early discovery requests, information received and communications between him and the parties identified, it said.