In the latest twist in one of the most bizarre domain name cases,
Stephen Cohen, who lost the lucrative name sex.com in a US court
last November, has fled to Mexico and become the subject of an
arrest warrant.
Gary Kremen of San Francisco registered the name in 1994 but
lost it the following year to Cohen, an ex-convict, after Cohen
sent a forged letter of transfer to Network Solutions, the domain
registrar. Cohen then ran a highly profitable porn portal until
November last year when a court awarded Kremen the return of the
domain name having found that the forged signature on the letter to
Network Solutions misspelled Kremen’s name.
In January this year, a German site, Domshop.de, put the domain
name up for sale at $85 million. After much media publicity, it
cancelled the sale and confessed that it never had Kremen’s
permission to sell the name in the first place.
On Friday, Cohen failed to appear at court hearing which had
been scheduled because he had failed to lodge a deposit of $25
million to cover potential damages payable to Kremen. He had also
missed previous hearings.
Cohen had previously claimed through his lawyers that he did not
have the money, but the judge ordered him to appear in person.
Cohen’s lawyers said he could not appear because he was being
detained by police in Tijuana, Mexico. The claim was dismissed by
the San Jose judge as being unsubstantiated, and an arrest warrant
has been issued.
