Former Wall Street darling Ted Rollins, angry about our reports on his dubious divorce case, has turned defamatory statements into the ugliest of "art forms"

Ted Rollins during his halcyon
days on Wall Street
(From tedrollins.org)

What is the price of reporting accurately about individuals connected to legal and political corruption in Alabama? It can be steep, especially if you care about your reputation.

Attacks from powerful forces can come in a variety of forms. I've been kidnapped by law enforcement and thrown in jail for five months, contrary to more than 200 years of First Amendment law. My wife, Carol, and I lost our Birmingham home of 25 years to a foreclosure that reeks of likely unlawful activity. We were subjected to a flagrantly unlawful eviction at an apartment in our new "home" of Springfield, Missouri, and a Greene County deputy brutalized Carol to the point that she was left with a shattered left arm that never will be the same.

Evidence strongly suggests these events were retaliation for our reporting on a number of conservative rogues--Rob Riley, Liberty Duke, Luther Strange, Jessica Medeiros Garrison, Bill Pryor, and more.

All of that has been reported here, and at other news sites, but less well known are the attacks on my reputation. And that is a timely subject, given recent reports that Gov. Robert Bentley tried to use law-enforcement resources to gather dirt on me and try to stop our reporting on his extramarital affair with former advisor Rebekah Caldwell Mason.

How ironic is this? I've twice been accused of, and been sued for, defamation--by Garrison and Riley/Duke--and in both cases, my reporting was found (as a matter of law) not to be false or defamatory. Less well known are the defamatory attacks against me--that I've been a repeated victim of the most vile defamation. I've yet to receive justice for any of the false information published about me--but that might change in the not-too-distant future.

The defamation against me has come from a variety of sources, but perhaps no one has been more blatant about it than Ted Rollins, the former CEO of Campus Crest Communities and the subject of numerous posts here about the cheat job administered in Shelby County against his ex wife (Birmingham resident Sherry Carroll Rollins) and their two daughters.

Rollins once was a darling of Wall Street, despite our reports here about his ties to domestic violence, child abuse, failure to pay child support, and other unpleasantness. Wall Street analysts, in fact, had direct knowledge of Rollins' abusive tendencies, but they chose to ignore it. Only when it appeared Rollins was about to drive Campus Crest Communities into the financial gutter, did the company's board give him the boot.

According to reports in the business press, Rollins has resurfaced as the founder of Valeo Groupe, which is focusing on student housing in places like Great Britain and Finland. He also is principal and chairman at Watercrest Group and Watercrest Holdings, which focus on senior housing.

How long will it be before investors, employees, or customers become aware of Rollins' background and his tendency to run companies into the ditch? Who knows, but the CEO's primary talent seems to be producing defamatory Web sites--with yours truly as the target.

Rollins is the "genius" behind Legal Schnauzer Exposed, an attack site that seems to have disappeared from the Web in recent days--hmmm, wonder why that is--but still can be found in archive form. It seems clear that Rollins, or someone connected to him, was behind the uber classy rogershuler.com, which has mostly disappeared, but a search still produces an entry that refers to me as "Satan's Earthly Emmissary" (sic). If my memory is correct, the site intimates that I have sex with animals and that I am a racist and a homophobe.

Finally, we discovered legalschnauzer.info, which suggests I have "psychological issues," based largely on the words of highly informed right-wing blogger Stacy McCain. (All of us who have brains have "psychological issues," right? That doesn't mean we have psychological problems, I presume. The only way not to have psychological issues is to be dead. You can see the nonsensical form of writing that tends to appear on these sites.)

We also know that Zac Parrish, Rollins former stepson and Sherry Rollins' biological son, set up an attack site, cleverly called mountschnauzer.com. Parrish got outed here for his handiwork before mountschnauzer.com could get off the ground, and the site died a quick death. What a loss for the literary world.

You will notice that the words "mount schnauzer" form a clear reference to anal, or doggy style, sex. Talk about Freudian, given that North Carolina social services investigated Ted Rollins for possible child sexual abuse, based on the complaint of a citizen who apparently had observed his interactions with Zac Parrish. On top of that, it's a matter of public record that Ted Rollins was convicted of assaulting Zac Parrish when the latter was about 16 years old and roughly half his stepfather's size.

Rollins has saved some of his finest "craftsmanship" for tedrollinstruth.com, of which he must be quite proud because he provides a link on his LinkedIn page. Most people use LinkedIn as a resource to show that they are competent professionals. Not Ted Rollins. He uses it to show he is a lying, defaming, bullying thug. Just the kind of guy I would want to run a company with my investments.

How off the rails is Rollins? You can get an idea from a post, published February 24, 2015, with the title "The Truth About Ted Rollins." Here we go, for starters:

In the fall of 2010, Mr. Ted Rollins came under attack by the Legal Schnauzer, a known and convicted cyber bully by the name of Roger Shuler. Mr. Shuler collaborated with Mr. Rollins’ ex-wife to spread untruths in the wake of her divorce from Mr. Rollins. This was an attempt to discredit Mr. Rollins after their divorce and also to extort additional money from him beyond what was provided by the divorce.

The only source that Mr. Shuler has ever had is Mr. Rollins’ ex-wife, who has used false information and Mr. Shuler’s lack of integrity to try and advance this ill-intentioned outcome. There are countless negative stories circulating on the web about Mr. Rollins and his family, all written by the Mr. Shuler aka the Legal Schnauzer blog. These stories are based on the untruths told by Mr. Rollins’ ex-wife and embellished further by the Mr. Shuler.

Exhibit A is an affidavit from Mr. Rollins’ ex wife that clearly states Mr. Schnauzer misrepresents the truth.

Let's see if we have this straight: Ted Rollins claims his ex wife, Sherry Rollins, tells "untruths" about him. But then he has Ms. Rollins sign an affidavit claiming I misrepresent the truth. If Sherry Rollins is a congenital liar, as Mr. Rollins claims, why should anyone believe a word she says in an affidavit about me? If she lies about Ted Rollins, she can lie about me, right?

Here is the real story behind Sherry Rollins' goofy, and utterly untruthful affidavit. Ted Rollins was threatening to have her utilities shut off at the Birmingham rental house where she lives with their two daughters. She felt she had no choice but to sign the bogus affidavit Ted Rollins wanted her to sign.

Ted Rollins still is using such threats. According to Ms. Rollins, he has vowed to stop paying court-ordered alimony and child support in May 2016--when youngest daughter Emma graduates from Mountain Brook High School--and have daughters and ex wife kicked out of their rental home. What a guy, that Ted Rollins.

How nutty is tedrollinstruth.com? He claims the only source I've had on the case is Sherry Rollins? I guess that doesn't count the dozens of court documents upon which I've based my reporting.

Let's check out more from Ted Rollins Truth, which might be the most ironically named site in the history of the Web:

About Roger Shuler – The “Legal Schnauzer”

Below is a summary of Mr. Shuler aka the Legal Schnauzer Blogger.

▪ The Legal Schnauzer aka Roger Shuler is a one-man blogger who claims to be a journalist, but is not. Furthermore, he does not bother to follow practices of a professional journalist. Rather, he plays fast and loose with some facts, fabricates most of his content and uses unreliable sources to create a tabloid-type blog that produces false information.

▪ He is known in Alabama as a negative blogger for hire that writes destructive innuendo to harass his victims.

▪ The Legal Schnauzer has been incarcerated twice for slandering various parties in Alabama. (FYI: Ted Rollins was convicted for assault on his teen-aged stepson in North Carolina. Ted Rollins "Truth" makes no mention of that.)

▪ From 1989 until 2008 Mr. Shuler was a content editor for the University of Alabama at Birmingham until he was terminated for inappropriate behavior. At the time Mr. Shuler also threatened the then President of the University.

▪ Mr. Shuler has been unemployed since 2008 and uses his blog as a means for extorting money from people by posting negative blog comments and trying to evoke a response from his subjects. He does this by writing his main post on his blog, The Legal Schnauzer and then by linking this post to other sites such as Daily Kos. (FYI: Mr. Rollins here falsely accuses me of a crime--extortion. Under the law, it's not a good idea to falsely accuse someone of a crime; it's called "defamation per se.")

▪ Mr. Shuler cannot pay his bills and has a very uncertain employment history. He lives on unemployment, welfare and disability and has not been employed since he was terminated from the University of Alabama, Birmingham where he threatened the life of some school officials. (FYI: Ted Rollins failed to pay court-ordered child-support for almost three years. Records indicate much of the money owed to Rollins' daughters never has been paid. In other words, Ted Rollins is a deadbeat dad. Ted Rollins "Truth" does not want you to know that. Again, Ted Rollins falsely accuses me of threatening to kill certain UAB officials. That's known as "defamation per se.")

▪ Mr. Shuler’s credit reports indicate that he routinely defaults on his debts and litigates as a strategy to avoid payment. (FYI: Court records show that Ted Rollins still owes child support to his children and that he failed to make court-ordered payments on mortgage and insurance to ensure his wife and children had a place to live during divorce proceedings. No word from Ted Rollins "Truth" about that. And by the way, how does Ted Rollins know anything about the contents of my credit reports? Does he have any lawful grounds for obtaining that information? I can't think of one.)

▪ Mr. Shuler was arrested and convicted in 2014 for failure to follow a judge’s order regarding the removal of defamatory and untrue statements regarding one of his targets. (FYI: A South Carolina court issued a bench warrant for contempt of court [failure to pay child support] and ordered Ted Rollins' arrest. That warrant was in place for more than two years, and records show Rollins never paid the full amount he owed, so he was a fugitive from justice. South Carolina law enforcement apparently did not bother to execute the arrest warrant, which apparently is one of the benefits Ted Rollins receives from being born into one of the nation's wealthiest families. On a final note, none of my reporting ever has been found to be false or defamatory, as a matter of law.)

▪ A default judgment was entered against Mr. Shuler in the amount of $3.5 million. (Editor's note: No lawful default judgment ever has been entered against Mr. Shuler.)

▪ Mr. Shuler is currently believed to be in hiding to avoid answering the default judgment, but continues to publish his blog. (In hiding? My contact information is available in multiple places on this blog. Plus, I've already answered the default judgment and proven that it is void, as a matter of law. Why "answer" it again?)

▪ More information can be found about Roger Schuler (sic) on http://www.legalschnauzers.com,

To borrow a phrase from the late Ann Richards, it looks like Ted Rollins was "born with a silver foot in his mouth."

How many ways has Ted Rollins defamed me here? Well, I'm not sure I have enough fingers to count that high. But the highlighted sections above show some of the biggest doozies. For fun, we suggest you click on the legalschnauzers.com link and see what you get. It was active just a few weeks ago.

Why hasn't the author of Ted Rollins' posts put his name to them? Shouldn't he be proud of such "work product"? Here are a few reasons the author might wish to remain anonymous:

(1) He has falsely accused me of crimes (extortion, terroristic threats)--not a good idea under defamation law;

(2) He falsely claims I've been incarcerated twice;

(3) He falsely claims I've been incarcerated for "slandering" someone. I've never been accused of slandering anyone, and slander is a tort (not a crime), which means you can't be arrested for it;

(4) He falsely claims I was fired at UAB for "inappropriate behavior" and that I threatened university president Carol Garrison and other university officials;

(5) He falsely claims I cannot pay my bills and I live on "welfare and disability";

(6) He falsely claims I was "convicted" of failing to follow a judge's order in a civil case.

I could go on, but you get the idea. There is very little truth to be found at Ted Rollins "Truth." And these kinds of bogus attacks are what you can expect from a CEO whose sense of entitlement apparently dwarfs his intelligence.