Jeremy Hales lost his bid to keep the Ohio protection orders going. John Cook and Michelle Preston are speaking out. And Richard Luthmann is announcing a media campaign demanding answers about a bankruptcy administration that Preston says threatens her family’s home and the animals depending on that property for their care.
The muzzle they describe is gone—and this broadcast shows what happens when the people at the center of the “bad neighbors” storyline finally get room to answer.
The September 15, 2026, order from Ohio’s Summit County Court of Common Pleas delivers three concrete defeats: Hales’s requests to extend the original civil stalking protection orders were denied; his requests for new full protection orders were denied; and his fourth contempt motion was denied. Magistrate Kandi S. O’Connor issued the decision, which Judge Susan Baker Ross approved and adopted after consolidating the four proceedings into Case No. CV-2023-09-3594. Read the Ohio order and its findings.
This was a failure of evidence. The court found Hales had not established sufficient new threats by Cook or Preston, a reasonable fear of serious physical harm based on the asserted threats, or evidence that either respondent controlled or directed third parties to threaten him. The decision specifically identifies Hales’s own filings as conduct that continued the litigation and rejects his attempt to lay other social-media commentators’ conduct at Cook and Preston’s feet.
Hales testified that his online activity served his safety and denied pursuing the proceedings to generate content. The court expressly declined to decide the competing accusation that he litigated for social-media revenue. Its actual ruling is strong enough: he failed to establish the grounds for the protection orders he sought.
For Cook and Preston—identified in the court caption as Lynette Preston—the refusal to renew or replace those orders is the victory they celebrate as the end of the muzzle. It does not erase earlier rulings or dispose of every separate dispute involving Hales.
Luthmann’s condemnation is unmistakable: he sees the Ohio defeat as a moment to challenge the human damage behind the online spectacle.
Preston then gives her account of how that spectacle developed.
She says Hales stood at a town meeting and told her the town would lynch her by the neck. She says a recording exists. The clip presents her accusation and her recollection of the meeting.
Preston makes a separate, serious accusation: she says Shochet approached one of her daughters about giving a false kidnapping account and that payment was offered. She says her daughter refused. Those assertions demand the underlying communications, the daughter’s account, and a response from the person accused; they are not findings in the Ohio order.
Preston discusses her family’s history of abuse and why she is determined to protect the child in her care. Her message gives the bankruptcy discussion its urgency: behind the filings and professional bills are people who still need somewhere to live.
That is where this broadcast turns from celebrating Hales’s defeat to announcing the next investigation.
Preston says Chapter 7 trustee Theresa Bender’s administration of her bankruptcy has brought the family to a property sale they cannot afford to avoid. She describes a $35,000 buyback proposal and says losing the property would uproot the family and disrupt the facilities and care supporting their animals. She also acknowledges the estate’s asserted basis for treating rescue-related property as assets: problems with the nonprofit’s operation and commingling of money. The dispute requires a documented accounting of ownership, exemptions, value, and alternatives.
Luthmann’s position is furious and direct: a child and dependent animals should not bear the consequences of avoidable litigation expense or unexplored recovery opportunities while professionals collect their fees.
He announces coordinated reporting on the trustee’s decisions, the economics of the proposed disposition, and Hales’s role as a creditor. The September 17 journalistic inquiry to the trustee, counsel, and federal officials puts that campaign into concrete questions: Where is the animal-care plan? What money has the administration recovered? What will creditors actually receive after expenses? Which potential claims, insurance recoveries, and less destructive alternatives were investigated?
The inquiry accuses the administration of enabling consequences that Hales’s critics describe as his desired outcome: financial ruin, displacement, and animals deprived of the conditions keeping them alive. It asks whether Hales has advocated the animals’ deaths and what the trustee has done to investigate and prevent that outcome. That accusation now requires answers, records, and scrutiny.
The comparison is Luthmann’s earlier “Animal Rescue Raid” reporting on D.E.L.T.A. Rescue, where objectors warned that a proposed settlement could jeopardize resources supporting lifetime animal care. That is a separate bankruptcy involving a different trustee. The common question is unavoidable: when the financial transaction is finished, who keeps the animals alive?
Lisa Lee’s September 15 bankruptcy hearing adds another concrete issue. She successfully challenged three of Hales’s five subpoena demands, protecting financial records, promotional materials, and viewer identities from production under those requests. Two requests were allowed, and service was upheld.
Luthmann’s question follows: why should the estate absorb expenses caused by conduct that may be abusive? Has the trustee evaluated seeking recovery from Hales for costs demonstrably caused by bad faith—including the full administrative burden if the evidence and applicable law support it—or negotiating a contribution that protects the home and animals? What did the rejected discovery cost, who incurred that expense, and what estate benefit was supposed to justify it?
“POLAMOP”—Protraction Of Litigation And Multiplication Of Proceedings—is the criticism driving this investigation. The reporting task is to trace it through motions, billing entries, recoveries, and decisions. A creditor’s demands, a trustee’s responsibilities, and the United States Trustee’s oversight role must each receive their own scrutiny.
The Ohio court has delivered its answer to the protection-order requests. Now the bankruptcy professionals face questions about their numbers and their choices.
A paid invoice does not shelter a child. A closing statement does not feed a tortoise. Show the recoveries. Show the alternatives. Show the plan that keeps the animals alive.
Follow the continuing reporting at Richard Luthmann’s Substack, Florida Gulf News, and Michael Volpe Investigates.
Richard Luthmann is separately involved in litigation with Hales. The program includes court reporting, participants’ accounts, and adversarial commentary. Share the reporting and examine the records; do not contact or harass the family, the child, witnesses, court personnel, or anyone discussed.
00:00 Hales loses in Ohio11:46 Preston responds: “I can say that now”22:24 Preston’s town-hall account28:11 The accusation involving her daughter32:08 “This needs to end”1:14:20 What the Ohio defeat means to Cook and Preston1:16:14 Preston describes the property and bankruptcy stakes1:20:00 The animal-rescue comparison1:24:00 Luthmann announces the media campaign1:48:00 Meet the animals at the center of the dispute1:49:33 The nonprofit and estate-asset dispute2:00:00 Who should pay the administrative costs?
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