Q: i have just received about a dozen telephone calls from Tony Ehret the sales manager at BCW threatening me with a lawsuit for libel for posting that message about their shop. my phone continues to ring off the hook, and i can no longer use it to receiving incoming calls.

A: since the phone calls did not stop yesterday, i had the telephone company put a trace on my phone. they were able to capture six harrassment calls out of over a dozen made. i filed a police report including a taped transcript of the calls. the police inspector informed them that harrassment calls are a criminal offense, and that any subsequent calls to me would be grounds for prosecution against the individual making the call. with a crminial complaint filed by me against them, any further harassment towards me or damage to my property would place them under immediate suspicion, not only of the offense, but of any conspiracy to commit the offense should a 3d party be the perpetrator. as of 2pm tuesday, the calls have indeed stopped. their plan was to silence me by intimidation outside this forum. i guess they don't realize that this pattern of harassment demonstrates my points. although i can use my phone again, their insistence on turning this into a criminial matter have made it impossible for me to settle this matter directly with them, as any contact on my part would harm my ability to claim that they are harrassing me,

and any contact by them would be considered further harassment. i said my piece, as is my consitutional right. if they had let things alone or kept the matter within civilized bounds, readers here would have attributed the message to an ex-customer who had had a bad experience, and that the business probably has its own side of the story. it was and is my intention that when someone asks about dealers in the bay area, to say my constitutionally-protected couple of lines in cyberspace, and leave it at that, which is why i have not responded to the flames. my follow-up messages were intended to inform the readers of the criminal escallation of the issue on their part.