A short list of the worst ways to get back at an ex: poison the goldfish, glitter-bomb the car (shit never vacuums up), and here's a new one: Have your mom write a tell-all book, then ship the skinny out to everyone in his or her life.
That's the scenario laid out in a lawsuit recently filed in Palm Beach County Circuit Court. Local John Scott claims that his ex's mom used his marital Hiroshima as fodder for a book, painting Scott as a deadbeat a-hole with defamatory information.
Scott sued Nancy Inch, her daughter Amy, and Abbott Press. The litigation stems from Nancy's March 2014 book, He Poked the Tiger. According to the book jacket, the 360-pager is a "gripping examination of a life scenario typical of our times" wherein "successful, beautiful young Kathryn fell in love with Luke, a man she met through a dating website." But after marrying and having a child, "Kathryn methodically unraveled Luke's lies to discover an extensive criminal background." Inch, a first-time author from Westlake, Ohio, "began writing as an attempt to cope with the frustration and pain caused by the diabolical monster in Kathryn's life."
Scott maintains that the literary "Luke" and "Kathryn" are stand-ins for himself and Amy. The picture gracing the book's cover was from their wedding, the complaint says. Nancy Inch's account of her daughter's marriage charges Luke "kidnapped a child and was arrested," "stole money," "failed to report earnings to the Internal Revenue Service," "did not pay child support for his prior child," and "had not sought timesharing with his child for two and a half years." All are "false, malicious, and slanderous statements," according to Scott's lawsuit.
If putting down marital troubles in literary cement weren't enough, Scott says, the Inches made sure to get copies into the hands of friends and family. They also delivered the book to the optometry school Scott attended. He was expelled. Copies were also mailed to other optometry schools "in Florida and across the United States." Subsequently, he's been "unable to obtain admission to any other optometry school," the lawsuit claims.
Calls to Scott's lawyer, Andrew Teschner, for a comment were not returned. Nancy Inch also did not return a message left at her home in Ohio. Messages to Abbott Press were also not returned.
