Ghost Witness: How a Michigan Attorney Fabricated a Media Contact Using ProtonMail to Prop Up a SLAPP Case

The Email That Launched an Investigation

While reviewing court filings tied to an active matter in Saginaw County Circuit Court before Judge Andre Borrello, I came across an outreach from what appeared to be a media professional. The email originated from SAljounyMediaConsulting@proton.me, signed by one “S. Aljourny” of “Aljourny Media Consulting.” The framing was journalistic: a writer reaching out to gather information about an ongoing matter of public concern.

I ran the name. Then ran it again. Then ran every variation of the spelling across Google, LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, LexisNexis, media byline aggregators, journalism directories, and state business registration databases. The result was the same each time: nothing. No articles. No social accounts. No business registration. No professional profile of any kind.

That is not a journalist who fell through the cracks. That is a ghost. And ghosts do not appear in court filings by accident.

Why ProtonMail: The Tool of Choice for Fabricated Identities

ProtonMail is a Swiss-based encrypted email provider with a legitimate and well-earned reputation for protecting the privacy of activists, journalists, and dissidents operating under authoritarian surveillance. It is also, by design, one of the easiest platforms in the world to use for creating an untraceable identity.

Creating a ProtonMail account requires no phone number, no government ID, and no existing email address. The platform retains minimal metadata and is headquartered in Geneva, placing it outside the reach of standard U.S. civil subpoenas and law enforcement records requests. Swiss data law applies, and cooperation with foreign legal proceedings is limited and slow.

The “Aljourny Media Consulting” branding adds a layer of professional veneer. It suggests an established consulting practice rather than a fly-by-night account. It is the kind of detail that might slip past a busy clerk, a judge with a full docket, or an opposing party who is already buried under litigation pressure. That is the calculation.

The SLAPP Context: Why Fabricated Witnesses Serve a Strategic Purpose

SLAPP litigation, Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation, is not primarily about winning. It is about exhausting the target. The goal is to generate enough legal exposure, cost, and uncertainty that the target stops doing whatever the filer found objectionable, whether that is investigative reporting, public advocacy, or simply existing as a witness to institutional misconduct.

In that context, a fabricated journalist contact can serve multiple functions. It can be used to establish the appearance of legitimate press scrutiny directed at the target, lending credibility to claims of reputational harm. It can be introduced to suggest that the target’s conduct was already attracting outside attention, manufacturing a narrative that positions the filer as responding to a broader problem rather than silencing a specific person.

And perhaps most critically in an active matter: a fabricated contact can be submitted as apparent evidence of the target’s involvement in something newsworthy, even when the “journalist” doing the investigating was manufactured by the same attorney filing the case. The circularity is the point. The court sees a paper trail. The paper trail was built by the person asking the court to act on it.

Fraud on the Court: What It Is and What It Costs

The legal concept of fraud on the court is narrower than ordinary fraud, and considerably more serious. It does not refer to one party deceiving another. It refers to conduct by an officer of the court, most commonly an attorney, that is directed at the court itself and corrupts the integrity of the judicial process.

The classic articulation, drawn from federal case law, describes fraud on the court as conduct that involves an unconscionable plan or scheme designed to improperly influence the court in its decision. Fabricating a witness and submitting that witness’s apparent correspondence in support of a litigation position fits squarely within that definition.

The consequences are not theoretical. Courts confronted with fraud on the court have dismissed cases outright, including cases where the fraud was discovered after a judgment had already been entered. They have vacated favorable rulings obtained through fraudulent means. They have imposed monetary sanctions on the attorneys responsible and referred those attorneys to state bar disciplinary authorities. In cases where the conduct rises to the level of criminal fraud or obstruction, courts have made referrals to federal prosecutors.

Exhibit A: The Address Itself

I did not need a private detective or a subpoena to identify the problem. The email address was the evidence.

A professional media consultant with an established practice does not use a ProtonMail address as their primary business contact. They have a domain. They have a website. They have a byline trail. They have a LinkedIn profile with connections, endorsements, and a work history that does not start and end with a single cold outreach to an investigative outlet. “S. Aljourny” has none of these things, because “S. Aljourny” was not built to be a real person. The account was built to send one email and generate one document that could be introduced in a proceeding.

When I received the inquiry and responded professionally, asking what publication Aljourny wrote for and how Clutch Justice had come to their attention, no verifiable answer came back. Because there was no answer that could be verified. The account existed to initiate contact, not to sustain it.

A Pattern Across Dockets: State and Federal

What makes this finding more than an isolated discovery is the context in which it sits. The Saginaw County Circuit Court matter, presided over by Judge Andre Borrello, is where the fabricated contact surfaced, but the attorney connected to this case has appeared in multiple proceedings, at both the state and federal level, where similar questions about procedural integrity have arisen. The pattern is not one of mistakes or misunderstandings. It is one of deliberate maneuver: using the architecture of litigation as a tool for pressure rather than as a mechanism for resolution.

Clutch Justice has documented procedural conduct across these matters. What happened in Saginaw County is the most direct and unambiguous example to date: a manufactured identity, a strategically chosen anonymous platform, a professional veneer applied to something that falls apart on first contact with any verification effort.

What Happens to an Attorney Who Does This Across Multiple Cases

A single instance of fabricating a witness contact is serious. A pattern of it across multiple matters, including federal proceedings, is a different category of problem entirely, and the consequences compound accordingly.

Bar disciplinary authorities in Michigan are governed by the Michigan Rules of Professional Conduct. The rules most directly implicated by fabricating evidence and introducing it into litigation are the duty of candor toward the tribunal (MRPC 3.3), the prohibition on conduct involving dishonesty, fraud, deceit, or misrepresentation (MRPC 8.4(b) and (c)), and the prohibition on conduct prejudicial to the administration of justice (MRPC 8.4(d)). Violations of these rules, particularly when repeated and documented across cases, support discipline ranging from a formal reprimand to suspension to disbarment.

At the federal level, the exposure expands. Federal courts have inherent authority to sanction attorneys for bad-faith conduct, and that authority is not capped by what local rules permit. An attorney who fabricates contacts and submits them in federal proceedings can face fee-shifting sanctions that run into the tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars, referral to the U.S. Attorney’s office for obstruction of justice or wire fraud, and suspension or disbarment from federal practice, which is handled separately from state bar proceedings and can occur independently.

Wire fraud is not a remote possibility here. Using electronic communications, including email, to execute a scheme to defraud a court or an opposing party is a federal crime under 18 U.S.C. Section 1343. Creating a fictitious identity and using it to generate fraudulent evidence that gets submitted in federal litigation fits that framework. Prosecutors have discretion, but the conduct is within the statute.

Civil liability to opposing parties is a separate track. A party who can demonstrate that they were harmed by fabricated evidence, whether through litigation costs, adverse rulings obtained by fraud, or reputational damage manufactured by a ghost witness, has grounds for a civil action for abuse of process and fraud. Those claims survive the underlying litigation and can be brought even after a case has concluded.

What Courts Should Do, and What They Often Do Not

The remedies exist. The question is application. A court that becomes aware of a fabricated witness contact submitted in connection with active litigation has authority to act immediately and decisively. That authority includes ordering sanctions against the attorney under both court rules and applicable bar conduct codes, dismissing the case with prejudice if the fraud was integral to its prosecution, vacating any relief granted on the basis of the fraudulent submission, and referring the matter to bar disciplinary authorities and, where appropriate, federal prosecutors.

In practice, courts are often reluctant to escalate. Fraud on the court findings are rare not because the conduct is rare but because courts are institutionally hesitant to conclude that an officer of the court has crossed that line. The bar for the finding is set high, and attorneys know it. The space between “aggressive advocacy” and “fraud on the court” is where a great deal of procedural abuse lives indefinitely.