Brett Hickey is going troll hunting.
The 38-year-old Manhattan money manager, his firm for months the subject of “malicious” and “reckless” online smears by an unidentified person or persons, last month decided enough is enough.
So Hickey sued the unidentified troll.
Hickey, who founded Star Mountain Capital seven years ago, sent subpoenas to the sites where the troll’s rantings were posted and was able to obtain ISP addresses of the user — but little else.
The ISP address did show the troll is based in Manhattan — but revealed no other “personally identifiable information,” the complaint said.
Armed with just the John Doe’s IP address, Hickey’s lawyers are set to march into Manhattan state court on June 1 in hopes of winning a judgment against the troll.
If a judgment is obtained, Hickey hopes to get some of the sites posting the troll’s rants — including Ripoff Report and Complaints Board — to take down the “false and misleading” rants.
The troll’s postings have caused Star Mountain Capital to “lose business opportunities” while suffering “significant monetary damages,” Hickey said in court filings.
Hickey did not return calls for comment and his lawyer would not comment beyond the lawsuit.
Down the line, Hickey, by suing the John Doe troll now and winning a judgment, could be in line to collect damages when and if the poster is unmasked.
In some of the posts, the troll refers to Star Mountain, a private equity firm that manages roughly $500 million and invests in companies with revenues of $10 million to $150 million, as a “scam” and a “fraud.”
At least one of the posts referred to Hickey, who was born in Canada, as the “Canadian Bernie Madoff.”
The posts, on different sites, include similar language — as if they were posted by the same person.
Although the John Doe is not expected to appear next week, a person familiar with the proceedings told The Post that the judge is likely to issue a default judgment in Hickey’s favor.
That judgment will set in motion a process in which Hickey hopes to be able to demand that the sites remove the posts.
Hickey’s lawyers have asked the sites to remove the posts — but they refuse, citing company policy.
Ripoff Report said it, too, at times gets ripped off by other sites, which lift content from its site without permission.
There’s an “incredible influx of scraping networks” that appear to be stealing our content, Anette Beebe, in- house counsel to the Ripoff Report, told The Post.
“It hurts plaintiffs and us,” Beebe said.
Representatives from Complaints Board did not respond to requests for comment.
“I don’t want customers bullied and threatened with ‘I’m going to sue you if you don’t remove,’” said Ed Magedson, founder of Ripoff Report.
Some sites will redact parts of posts proven untrue via a court order — which is what Hickey is hoping for.
“My unofficial advice: Make that [court] case as strong as possible,” Beebe told The Post.