An Iowa Man Is Facing Jail Time For Armed Robbery For Website Domain Name
When I first read the headline “Iowa Man Convicted of Plotting to Steal Domain Name At Gunpoint” all I could think of was the scene in Zoolander where someone says the files are in the computer and Zoolander breaks open the computer looking for actual files. This is how I imagine stealing a domain at gunpoint would work. Just some robber looking for a physical representation of an internet domain name and getting more and more frustrated.
According to NBC News:
An Iowa man who founded a social media company highlighting young adults engaging in “crude behavior, drunkenness, and nudity” was convicted of plotting to rob a man at gunpoint over a domain name, prosecutors said.
Well if you can’t trust a social media founder who highlights crude behavior, drunkenness, and nudity who can you trust? And yes, I know I work for Dlisted but there’s a strict no-gun-point robbery policy allowed. Page 23 of our handbook.
Turns out that Iowa man Rossi Lorathio Adams II also known as “Polo” didn’t like that someone else could own a piece of intellectual property that didn’t belong to him so he took up this dispute the old fashioned way.
After failing to persuade the unidentified owner of “doitforstate.com” to sell the page, Adams enlisted his cousin Sherman Hopkins Jr., a felon living in a homeless shelter, to break into the owner’s home and force him at gunpoint to transfer the domain to Adams.
If you’re wondering about how one goes about an armed robbery for a domain name, it’s explained here:
On June 21, 2017, with instructions on how to transfer the domain written on a note, Hopkins entered the owner’s home and pointed a gun at his head while instructing him to transfer the domain, according to officials.
Imagine the terror and confusion that poor guy must of woken up to. When you realize it’s a robbery but for a website name? And you have to sign papers?
It turns out that going to the Suge Knight School of How To Make Business Deals is not always the smartest thing and these two knuckleheads are facing serious jail time. And they still don’t have the damn domain name!
Pic: Linn County Jail