Summary: Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals reverses stalking conviction Lon Brandon Meeks served 15 months for YouTube rant Judge Scott Rowland authored unanimous 12-page opinion A Texas man spent 15 months in prison in Oklahoma for a crude rant on YouTube about his ex-wife. Lon Brandon Meek, 45, was released May 11. He calls what happened to him a miscarriage of justice. An appeals court now has ruled in his favor, reversing his stalking conviction and ordering his trial judge to dismiss the felony case. "I was super excited," Meeks said from Temple, Texas. "It was a massive weight lifted off me and my family." In a precedent-setting unanimous decision, the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals on July 30 ruled the evidence failed to prove the 2023 video was directed toward Meeks' ex-wife. "Instead, the evidence showed a purportedly jilted ex-husband engaging in a drunken rant to an internet audience about his failed marriage and custody situation," Judge Scott Rowland wrote. The opinion notes the 39-minute video was posted on a personal YouTube channel and consisted of Meeks reading a letter to the Oklahoma judge who issued a protective order against him. Meeks also stated the letter is meant for all judges in Bryan County "because maybe y'all need to pay attention to what's going on in y'all's county," the opinion notes. Meeks went off script into tangents as he read the letter, "talking about his ex-wife in unflattering ways." "There was no evidence he made any attempt to share the video with his ex-wife," Rowland wrote in the 12-page opinion. "He neither tagged her nor sent it to her. No evidence showed he made her aware of its existence and she acknowledged she had had no direct contact with or had spoken to Meeks for years. "She found out about the video when her boss sent her a link to it, and she made the decision to view its content of her own accord." A jury convicted Meeks on Feb. 4, 2025, in Bryan County District Court in Durant, where his ex-wife lives. Jurors recommended five years in prison as punishment. His trial judge ordered him to prison for three years and put him on probation for two. District Judge Mark Campbell dismissed the case July 30 after the conviction was reversed. What is OK to say on social media? The case is another example of how the legal system and society as a whole have struggled with how far social media users can go in their posts. The issue came to the forefront after the Sept. 10, 2025, assassination of conservative commentator Charlie Kirk in Utah. Hundreds of people across the country were fired over their social media posts critical of Kirk. Vice President JD Vance called on people to report anyone “celebrating” the death. Some of those terminated have successfully sued on free speech grounds. It came up again this year after a federal grand jury in North Carolina indicted former FBI Director James Comey over a photograph he posted in 2025 on Instagram of seashells on a beach. Comey is accused of making a threat against President Donald Trump, who fired him in 2017. The seashells were shaped to spell out "86 47." "86" is a slang term that means "to throw out" or "to get rid of," according to Merriam-Webster. Trump is the 47th U.S. president. Comey's attorneys have asked for a dismissal, saying he has been singled out for prosecution because the president "harbors genuine animus toward him." They also told a judge that "Comey deleted the message within hours and explained that he did not intend to invoke violence." In Oklahoma, a Skiatook man was convicted in April of 10 threat crimes for posting on X that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents need to be shot. Sentencing for Logan Christopher Murfin, 26, is set for Aug. 10 in Tulsa federal court. "Logan was responding to human suffering that he felt powerless to stop and, in his anger, he expressed his opinion," his attorney wrote in a sentencing memo. In its opinion July 30, the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals said the state's anti-stalking law is designed to protect a person from unwanted conduct directed toward them "not to censor someone from randomly talking negatively about ... a party to others." "We are not indifferent to the embarrassment and harmful emotional toll being the subject of a spiteful rant concerning one's personal life can have, especially in such a public forum as YouTube," Rowland wrote. The court acknowledged that Meeks also had challenged his conviction on free speech grounds. "This is an interesting constitutional question, but one we need not settle in this case," Rowland, a former journalist, wrote. The Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs, a conservative think tank, had urged the court to throw out the conviction on First Amendment grounds. "While many Americans rightly criticize the censorship regime taking shape in other parts of the world, this Court is all that stands between Oklahoma joining the ranks of governments that impose criminal punishments for what individuals post online," the council argued in a friend-of-the-court brief. "This Court must step in." The council told the appeals court that videos on Meeks' YouTube channel, "Defiant Against Injustice," have had 1.4 million views. "Meeks is no Joe Rogan," the council told the court in a reference to one of the country's most influential podcasters. "But he clearly reaches an audience large enough to dispel the notions that his videos are directed towards anyone in particular." Meeks was accused in the stalking charge of repeatedly posting online videos designed to harass his ex-wife even though he had been told in a 2020 protective order "to cease this type of conduct." He was charged in Oklahoma even though the 2023 video was posted in Texas. Attorneys for the state argued in the appeal that Meeks had an overarching goal of plaguing his ex-wife "for the rest of eternity, as he put it." "The YouTube video at issue was posted in furtherance of that goal," they argued. The ex-wife testified at the trial that he had harassed her in other ways after she got the protective order against him. "He was texting my family members. He posted ... 220 or so Facebook posts that reference me or my children, or subliminal messages to me or my children, or posting pictures of me, or talking graphically about my body, or, you know, about ... saying that I kidnapped his child and that I was a rapist."   Meeks and his ex-wife divorced in 2019. They have a daughter together. He claims in the 2023 video and in other statements that he has not been able to see his daughter for years because of fraud and a courthouse conspiracy against him. He claims the conspiracy arose in part because his ex-wife worked for and is now married to an attorney. "My heart aches everyday from the ongoing knife they have placed in my heart and back," he told The Oklahoman on July 31. "My groans were never harassment." The Oklahoman is not naming the ex-wife or her new husband. They did not make a comment after being contacted by The Oklahoman. Overseeing the prosecution of the stalking case was Mark Matloff, the district attorney of McCurtain, Choctaw and Pushmataha counties. Matloff also declined to comment. Meeks put the 2023 video back on his YouTube channel after the Court of Criminal Appeals ruled July 30. He had been required as a condition of his probation to take it down. He said he has been trying since his release from prison to get a job as a a maintenance man at an apartment complex, which is what he had done before. "It's hard," he said. "It's sort of like a pedophile trying to get a job at a day care whenever you're a stalker trying to get a job at an apartment complex where families live. "I don't have any money," he also said. "This has broke me. ... There's going to be lawsuit. ... That's where my head's at right now." This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Oklahoma court tosses conviction of YouTuber who went to prison for online rant Reporting by Nolan Clay, The Oklahoman / Oklahoman USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect

Summary: New York Attorney General Letitia James files suit Kalshi accused of operating without gaming commission license CFTC challenges New York’s regulatory enforcement New York's attorney general sued Kalshi on July 31, claiming that its prediction market platform violates state laws against illegal gambling. In a petition filed in a state court in Manhattan, Attorney General Letitia James said Kalshi failed to obtain a New York State Gaming Commission license to operate its platform, where people trade based on the predicted outcomes of sports, elections and other events. The attorney general said such platforms can encourage problem gambling, including by people under age 21, and endanger people's financial, emotional and physical health. She filed similar petitions in April against two other prediction market operators, Coinbase Financial Markets and Gemini Titan, saying all three companies' so-called event contracts were "quintessentially" gambling. Prediction markets such as Kalshi and Polymarket have soared in popularity since the 2024 U.S. presidential election, when they fared better than pollsters in predicting Republican Donald Trump's victory over Democrat Kamala Harris. Their growth has sparked a flurry of lawsuits and countersuits over the authority of individual U.S. states, rather than the federal government, to regulate the industry. The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission has claimed exclusive oversight and challenged regulatory activity in at least nine states including New York, which it sued in April. Less than one hour before New York sued Kalshi, the CFTC filed an "emergency" motion in Manhattan federal court to stop the state's enforcement activity, calling it "overreach" that would irreparably harm the agency and markets it regulates. The CFTC filing followed July 29’s rejection by the federal appeals court in Manhattan of Kalshi's request to avoid being subjected to New York's gambling laws, while it appeals U.S. District Judge Analisa Torres' refusal on July 8 to issue an injunction against the state. Kalshi had preemptively sued New York last October to block enforcement. According to New York's petition, Kalshi's prediction markets are gambling because people can wager on events whose outcomes they don't control, such as who will win the Super Bowl or the reality TV show "Big Brother." New York also objected to Kalshi letting 18- to 20-year-olds use its platform, despite a minimum age of 21 under state law for mobile sports betting. At least four states — Massachusetts, Michigan, Nevada and Washington — have won court orders restricting Kalshi's activities. In refusing to stop potential New York enforcement activity, Torres found the state's interests in preventing gambling addiction, preserving the integrity of sports, and avoiding a proliferation of unregulated contracts "heavily" outweighed Kalshi's interests in ensuring the primacy of federal law and avoiding "intractable" technology issues for customers. New York's lawsuit seeks a halt to Kalshi's alleged unlawful conduct, the forfeiture of illegal gains, civil fines equal to triple those gains, and restitution to customers.

Summary: Judge James Robart dismisses Zillow racketeering suit Court finds insufficient factual allegations in complaint Plaintiffs allowed to amend complaint by August 17 In the midst of several legal battles over its practices, Zillow has secured a key court victory. Seattle-based U.S. District Judge James Robart on July 27 dismissed a lawsuit against Zillow that said the company violated the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act and the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act by allegedly steering homebuyers toward Zillow-affiliated agents and Zillow Home Loans. Zillow and fellow defendant GK Properties filed motions to dismiss in February, arguing that the plaintiffs' lengthy complaint was "heavy on filler but thin on substance." "Plaintiffs' claims of lack of notice are implausible given Zillow's express, repeated disclosures," the dismissal ruling reads. "Plaintiffs fail to plead specific facts showing how Defendants' practices actively undermined the homebuying process, restricted informed lender choice, or eroded trust in real estate professionals." In the suit, originally filed in September 2025, the plaintiff alleged that Zillow tricks consumers into using agents affiliated with the portal through its Flex and Premier Agent programs, resulting in inflated home purchase prices. An amended complaint filed in November 2025 said Zillow uses internal incentives to steer homebuyers to use its own mortgage business, Zillow Home Loans. The lawsuit was consolidated in December 2025 with a second complaint, by another plaintiff, first filed in November 2025 with similar claims. Robart said in his ruling that the complaint did not have enough factual allegations to substantiate the claims the plaintiffs made. The ruling said Zillow's website clearly displays the property's actual listing agent, and therefore it is implausible that buyers are tricked into working with a Zillow-affiliated agent. The complaint said that even though buyers are promised that the services of a Zillow-affiliated agent are free, the buyer's agent still receives a commission if the sale goes through. The ruling said those claims lack standing, because the fees in question came out of the seller's agent's total compensation, which was split with the buyer's agent, rather than from the buyer. The ruling also said the complaint failed to identify necessary information that highlighted exactly how Zillow allegedly steered homebuyers to its mortgage services. After the ruling, Zillow praised the judge for dismissing the "baseless complaint." The court is allowing the plaintiffs to file an amended complaint by Aug. 17, saying it "cannot conclude that Plaintiffs are entirely incapable of curing these defects" from their earlier filings.