Jared Covit, Lauren Rich and Martin Shell keep digging.....

Why am I not surprised that these folks are ignoring the old adage of 'if you are trying to get out of a hole the first step is to stop digging'.

Lauren Rich and Jared Covit continue to operate a mirror instagram account and contact fans of Catskill Farms. And Martin Shell blasts what I guess he feels is a sharp sword of legal deftness in his latest filing with the Ulster Court - which he mistakenly referred to as the Union County court at the deposition, where he showed up an hour late and seemed to be borrowing loose scraps of paper from the court reporter to take notes, and also appeared to be more or less following a script written by his client Jared Covit - at least that was my observation, sitting 2.5' away from him... sweating, mixing up dates, making faces and hand gestures at me.

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June 3, 2026

Attorney Grievance Committee

Third Judicial Department

286 Washington Avenue Extension, Suite 200

Albany, New York 12203

Re: Supplemental Complaint Against Martin Shell, Esq. — The Shell Law Firm, PLLC (Supplementing April 27, 2026 Complaint)

Dear Members of the Committee:

I write to supplement my complaint dated April 27, 2026, against Martin Shell, Esq. (“Mr. Shell”) of The Shell Law Firm, PLLC, counsel for Plaintiffs Jared C. Covit and Lauren M. Rich in the matter of Covit et al. v. Catskill Farms, Inc. et al., Index No. EF2023-978, Supreme Court of the State of New York, County of Ulster (Hon. Sharon Graff, J.S.C.).

My April 27, 2026 complaint addressed Mr. Shell’s aggressive and unprofessional conduct during the March 30, 2026 court-ordered site inspection, including his confrontational behavior, his unauthorized and intimidating recording of the proceedings, and his and his client’s coordinated use of what appeared to be a listening device to monitor privileged attorney-client communications. This supplemental complaint addresses a pattern of additional conduct that has come to light since that filing, which I respectfully submit demonstrates that Mr. Shell has crossed from zealous advocacy into active participation in a coordinated campaign designed to harm me personally and professionally — conduct that falls well outside the bounds of proper legal representation.

I.  IMPROPER COURT FILING CONTAINING UNSWORN DEFAMATORY ASSERTIONS

On June 1, 2026, Mr. Shell filed a letter with the Court (NYSCEF Doc. No. 44) purportedly requesting an extension of the Note of Issue deadline. The letter, however, went far beyond a routine scheduling request. It contained a series of serious, unsworn, and one-sided personal attacks against me, including characterizing my conduct as “intended to intimidate and harass,” accusing me of “baseless accusations,” and asserting that my statements were “demonstably false.”

This letter was not a motion. It was not supported by an affidavit, affirmation, or any sworn statement. It attached no evidence. It was filed in the public court record — NYSCEF — without affording me any procedural opportunity to respond prior to its becoming part of the permanent public record. The apparent purpose of filing these assertions in a court letter, rather than in a proper motion with evidentiary support, was to taint the public record and prejudice the Court against me without subjecting those assertions to any evidentiary scrutiny.

An attorney who uses a court filing as a vehicle to place unsworn personal attacks on opposing parties into the public record — not to advance a legitimate legal argument, but to cause reputational harm — engages in conduct that is prejudicial to the administration of justice. Rule 8.4(d) of the New York Rules of Professional Conduct prohibits conduct that is “prejudicial to the administration of justice.” Mr. Shell’s use of a scheduling letter to disseminate defamatory assertions about me in a permanent public record implicates this rule directly.

II.  CONDUCT DURING DEPOSITION REFLECTING PERSONAL INTEREST OVER CLIENT REPRESENTATION

On April 23, 2026, I appeared for my deposition in the above-referenced matter. My attorney and a court reporter were present throughout. During the course of the deposition, Mr. Shell’s conduct departed from professional norms in several respects that I respectfully submit reflect conduct unbecoming of a member of the bar and, more significantly, conduct undertaken in furtherance of Mr. Shell’s personal interests rather than his clients’.

Specifically, Mr. Shell raised his voice at me on multiple occasions during the deposition. He engaged in facial gestures, pantomiming, and mocking behavior directed at me — conduct witnessed by my attorney and recorded by the court reporter’s transcript. This conduct appeared to escalate following my presentation of the April 20, 2026 grievance letter I had prepared addressing his conduct at the March 30, 2026 inspection.

Of particular concern is the point at which Mr. Shell’s conduct shifted from representing his clients to protecting himself personally. During the deposition, Mr. Shell pivoted away from questioning relevant to his clients’ claims and toward questioning and conduct designed to address and defend his own personal reputation and conduct. An attorney who uses his client’s deposition as a platform to defend his own personal interests has a conflict of interest between himself and his client, and is no longer acting solely as a representative of his clients but as a self-interested participant in the proceeding. This raises serious concerns under Rule 1.7 of the New York Rules of Professional Conduct, which prohibits a lawyer from representing a client when the lawyer’s own interests may impair the lawyer’s independent professional judgment.

The deposition transcript and recording are available to the Committee upon request and will corroborate the conduct described herein. My attorney, Milad Boddoohi, Esq. of Boddoohi & Friedlander LLC, 291 Wall Street, 4th Floor, Kingston, New York 12401, was present throughout and can be contacted as a witness.

III.  COORDINATED CONDUCT BETWEEN COUNSEL AND CLIENT DURING THE MARCH 30, 2026 INSPECTION

My April 27, 2026 complaint described the apparent use of a listening device during the court-ordered site inspection of March 30, 2026. I write to supplement that account with additional detail and context.

During the inspection, while Mr. Shell and I were located outside the Property at a distance from the front entrance, Mr. Shell audibly spoke the words “Jared, can you open the front door” — addressed to his client, Jared Covit, who was at that moment inside the home and out of earshot of a normal speaking voice. Moments later, the front door opened. This sequence of events, captured on my recording of the inspection, is consistent only with Mr. Shell and Mr. Covit having established a real-time audio communication device — a listening device — through which Mr. Covit could hear Mr. Shell’s communications from inside the home.

If Mr. Shell and his client established a listening device at the exterior of the Property during a court-ordered inspection — a proceeding at which privileged attorney-client communications between me and my counsel necessarily occurred — that conduct constitutes a potential violation of New York Penal Law § 250.05 (Eavesdropping) and represents a serious breach of Mr. Shell’s professional obligations. An attorney who participates in the interception of opposing counsel’s privileged communications — whether directly or by facilitating his client’s doing so — has engaged in conduct involving dishonesty, fraud, deceit, and misrepresentation in violation of Rule 8.4(c) of the New York Rules of Professional Conduct, and has engaged in conduct prejudicial to the administration of justice in violation of Rule 8.4(d).

I have a recording of the inspection that captures the relevant sequence of events. Four individuals were present at the inspection: myself, my attorney Milad Boddoohi, Esq., and at least two others whose identities I can provide to the Committee upon request.

It is necessary to address directly a deliberate misdirection contained in Mr. Shell’s June 1, 2026 letter to the Court (NYSCEF Doc. No. 44). In that letter, Mr. Shell responds to my eavesdropping allegation by citing CPLR 3120(1)(ii) and noting that he “likewise recorded the inspection” after I arrived with a recording device. This response is a knowing conflation of two entirely separate acts, and I respectfully submit it was crafted to obscure rather than address the actual allegation.

Mr. Shell’s visible recording of me with a camera during the inspection is not the conduct at issue. That recording, however inappropriate in its aggressive and intimidating manner, was observable. I was aware of it. My counsel was aware of it. It is not the basis of my eavesdropping complaint.

The eavesdropping allegation arises from an entirely separate and distinct act: the apparent use of a concealed or undisclosed audio communication device connecting Mr. Shell, outside the Property, to his client Jared Covit, inside the Property. The evidence of this device is specific and captured on my recording: Mr. Shell, while standing outside the home at a location from which his client could not have heard a normal speaking voice, audibly directed Mr. Covit — who was inside the home — to open the front door. Mr. Covit then opened the door. There is no innocent explanation for this sequence of events that does not involve a real-time audio connection between Mr. Shell and his client during a proceeding at which my privileged attorney-client communications were necessarily taking place.

Mr. Shell’s decision to respond to this specific allegation by referencing his camera — an entirely different act — rather than addressing the audio device sequence described above, is itself telling. A straightforward denial would have addressed the specific facts: the spoken words, the inside-home client, the door opening. Instead, Mr. Shell substituted a justification for conduct that was never alleged to be improper in the same way. The Committee should take note of this misdirection when evaluating Mr. Shell’s credibility on this and all other matters.

IV.  PATTERN OF CONDUCT REFLECTING PARTICIPATION IN A COORDINATED CAMPAIGN AGAINST COMPLAINANT

Viewed in isolation, any one of the incidents described herein and in my April 27, 2026 complaint might be attributed to zealous advocacy or professional differences. Viewed together, however, they reflect a pattern of conduct that goes beyond representation of a client and into active, personal participation in a coordinated campaign to harm me professionally and personally.

Mr. Shell’s clients have, over the course of more than three years, engaged in a sustained and premeditated campaign against me that has included: the filing and dismissal of a frivolous lawsuit; the retention and scripting of a private engineer to manufacture false professional corroboration for baseless claims; the harassment of the local building department until it issued an extraordinary post-completion letter that was subsequently rendered moot; the creation and operation of a fraudulent Instagram account designed to impersonate my business and defame me to hundreds of prospective clients; and the organization of a WhatsApp campaign to rally neighbors against me.

Mr. Shell’s conduct during this litigation — his aggressive and recording-device-wielding behavior at the court-ordered inspection; his apparent coordination of a listening device with his client during those same proceedings; his use of the deposition to personally defend his own reputation rather than represent his clients; and his filing of a court letter designed to place unsworn personal attacks against me in the public record — suggests that he has become a participant in this campaign rather than merely its legal instrument.

Particularly telling is Mr. Shell’s inclusion of himself as a personally protected party in his May 2, 2026 cease and desist letter, which was addressed to my counsel on behalf of “Jared C. Covit, Lauren M. Rich and Martin Shell, Esq.” An attorney who inserts his own personal interests as a protected party in correspondence sent through his client’s litigation is no longer acting solely as a representative. He is using his client’s legal machinery to advance his own personal agenda — a conflict of interest that implicates Rule 1.7 and raises questions about whether his representation of his clients remains undivided.

V.  MR. SHELL’S POST-GRIEVANCE CONDUCT AS PREEMPTIVE SELF-DEFENSE

The Committee’s attention is respectfully directed to the sequence of events following Mr. Shell’s receipt of my grievance complaint on April 23, 2026. On that date, at the outset of my deposition, I presented Mr. Shell with a letter addressed to this Committee detailing his conduct at the March 30, 2026 inspection. Every significant action Mr. Shell has taken since that date warrants scrutiny as to its true purpose.

The timeline is instructive:

1. April 20, 2026: I prepare my grievance complaint against Mr. Shell.
2. April 23, 2026: I present the grievance letter to Mr. Shell at the outset of my deposition. Mr. Shell’s conduct during the deposition escalates noticeably after receiving it.
3. April 25, 2026: I publish a blog post republishing the full text of the grievance letter.
4. May 2, 2026: Nine days after learning of the grievance complaint, Mr. Shell sends a cease and desist letter demanding I remove from my blog, among other things, the April 25, 2026 post republishing the grievance letter in full.
5. June 1, 2026: Five weeks after learning of the grievance complaint, Mr. Shell files NYSCEF Doc. No. 44 with the Court — a letter that made no legitimate procedural argument but served primarily to characterize me as a harasser, a fabricator, and a bad-faith litigant, and to invoke the threat of sanctions under 22 NYCRR § 130-1.1.

On May 2, 2026, Mr. Shell was not demanding removal of statements harmful to his clients. He was demanding removal of statements harmful to himself personally — statements made to a professional regulatory body about his own conduct. The demand that a complainant suppress his own grievance filing is, on its face, an attempt to interfere with the disciplinary process and silence a complainant before the Committee could act.

On June 1, 2026, Mr. Shell filed Doc. No. 44 with the Court, placing his characterization of my conduct into the permanent public court record weeks before this Committee would have any opportunity to consider my complaint. The filing served no legitimate scheduling purpose that required personal attacks on my credibility. Its primary function was to establish a preemptive counter-narrative in an official forum — one that would be indexed, searchable, and publicly available — designed to discredit me before the Committee reviewed my complaint.

The pattern is transparent: Mr. Shell learned of a grievance complaint against him, moved swiftly to suppress its public dissemination, and then filed a preemptive court submission designed to discredit me in the official record before the Committee could act. This is not legal advocacy on behalf of his clients. This is self-interested conduct using his clients’ litigation as a personal defense mechanism — precisely the conflict of interest Rule 1.7 is designed to prevent.

An attorney who converts his client’s lawsuit into a vehicle for his own personal protection has subordinated his clients’ interests to his own. He has done so without, as far as I am aware, disclosing that conflict to his clients or obtaining their informed consent as required by Rule 1.7(b). The clients in this matter — Mr. Covit and Ms. Rich — are entitled to counsel whose loyalty runs solely to them, not to an attorney whose actions in their case are increasingly shaped by his own professional self-preservation.

VI.  RELEVANT RULES OF PROFESSIONAL CONDUCT

The conduct described herein implicates the following provisions of the New York Rules of Professional Conduct:

1. Rule 8.4(c): Prohibits conduct involving dishonesty, fraud, deceit, or misrepresentation. Implicated by the apparent coordination of a listening device during a court-ordered inspection to intercept privileged communications.
2. Rule 8.4(d): Prohibits conduct prejudicial to the administration of justice. Implicated by the filing of unsworn defamatory assertions in a public court record and by the apparent eavesdropping during a court-ordered proceeding.
3. Rule 1.7: Prohibits representation where the lawyer’s own interests may impair independent professional judgment. Implicated by Mr. Shell’s use of the deposition and cease and desist letter to advance his own personal interests alongside those of his clients.
4. Rule 3.5(a)(5): Prohibits conduct intended to disrupt a tribunal. Implicated by Mr. Shell’s aggressive and intimidating conduct during the court-ordered inspection and during the deposition.
5. Rule 4.4(a): Prohibits use of means that have no substantial purpose other than to embarrass or harm a third person. Implicated by Mr. Shell’s mocking and intimidating conduct during the deposition and his filing of personal attacks in a court scheduling letter.

VII.  RELIEF REQUESTED

I respectfully request that the Committee:

1. Accept and docket this letter as a supplement to my April 27, 2026 complaint against Martin Shell, Esq.;
2. Investigate the conduct described herein and in my April 27, 2026 complaint, including the eavesdropping allegation, the deposition conduct, and the court letter filing;
3. Obtain and review the transcript of the April 23, 2026 deposition, the recording of the March 30, 2026 site inspection, and NYSCEF Doc. No. 44 filed in Index No. EF2023-978; and
4. Take such further action as the Committee deems appropriate to address the pattern of professional conduct described herein.

I am available to provide supporting documentation, including my inspection recording, the deposition transcript, correspondence, and the names and contact information of witnesses. My attorney Milad Boddoohi, Esq. is available to corroborate the deposition and inspection conduct as a firsthand witness.

I respectfully submit that the pattern of conduct described herein — viewed in its totality — reflects an attorney who has allowed personal interests and coordinated participation in his clients’ campaign to override his professional obligations. I trust the Committee will give this matter the serious attention it warrants.

Respectfully,

______________________________

Charles Petersheim

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cc: Milad Boddoohi, Esq., Boddoohi & Friedlander LLC (via email)

    Martin Shell, Esq., The Shell Law Firm, PLLC (via NYSCEF and email)

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