This Report About the Zoom Cat Lawyer Using Federal Agents to 'Torment' His Ex with Phony Drug Raids is Totally Bananas

By now you've either seen this Zoom call that went viral, or saw a headline about it but didn't click because you knew it would be at best a mild chuckle but your mom can't stop talking about how hysterical it is. Regardless, you no doubt know it exists because it's the No. 1 trending video on YouTube, with close to 7.5 million views, as well as another 27 million-plus on Twitter. 

And by now it would be totally forgotten about, buried under the viral tsunami of "Drunk Tom Brady Throws the Lombardi Trophy and Staggers on the Dock" clips, were it not for this follow up. 

Source - [I]n Texas's 394th Judicial District Court, in which Presidio County attorney Rod Ponton appeared on-screen in the form of a wide-eyed kitten. ...

It can also make us forget the enormous power people like Ponton wield, and the capacity they have to use that power for very bad things. 

For example, a Reason investigation in 2014 and subsequent documentary reported that, as a prosecutor, Ponton leveraged the gears of the federal government in a yearslong effort to level bogus drug charges against a woman in Alpine, Texas, ultimately succeeding at destroying her business.

The target, Ilana Lipsen, was his alleged former lover; she says she had one sexual encounter with him after arriving in town as an 18-year-old college student in 2003. (Ponton, who is now 69, would have been in his early 50s.) Lipsen told Reason that she was "disgusted with herself," and although she noticed odd behavior from Ponton afterward—she recounted him driving by her house, for example—she cut ties.

Until 2012, that is, when she would have no choice but to reconnect with Ponton. Nearly a decade later, Lipsen had opened her own store, The Purple Zone, which sold smoking supplies. Anthony Fisher, who reported this story in 2014, described what happened next:

In March 2012, "10-12 men came in, SWAT team style" to the Purple Zone, Lipsen recalls. They told her she was not under arrest, but cuffed her and threw her in the back of a police van while they searched her store, seized personal property including computers, a cell phone, and hard drives. They also took numerous packets of what Lipsen sells as potpourri in the incense section of the store, adorned with the colorful brand names such as "Dr. Feelgood," "Scooby Snax" and "Bomb! Marley."

According to Ponton, then the district attorney in Brewster County, Texas, Lipsen's potpourri qualified as "spice"—synthetic cannabinoids. The only problem: Her products were legal, as state-sponsored lab tests would confirm over and over.

Eight months later, Ponton had her arrested anyway. He also arrested her mother, who did not work at the store, charging both with "possession and distribution of a controlled substance"—a felony. ... Lipsen had the products tested in private labs and likewise had proof that the substances weren't illegal.

That didn't matter to Ponton. The Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) would go on to make several undercover purchases over the next few years, and Ponton would continue to beg the state for testing money, apparently hoping that a lab result would finally yield the proof he needed to substantiate the criminal charges he wanted to bring against her. ...

[A]gents found no illegal substances. But they did find ammunition that Lipsen had received as a gift; Ponton excavated another obscure law and charged her with "receiving ammunition while under indictment." Lipsen's sister Arielle was also arrested after arguing with an agent onsite, who threw her to the ground as he took her into custody. 

Big, if true. And something that would most definitely reduce the Aww Factor of a cute virtual kitten talking with the voice of a clueless senior citizen who doesn't get how Zoom works. 

Take the allegations for what you will. Here's a report Reason did about it in 2014:

It says that Alpine is a town of 5,000 people 200 miles from El Paso and in the middle of nowhere. But if even 10% of this is accurate, there's more going on there than in most sprawling urban population centers. Prosecutors bedding 18-year-old newcomers to town. Federal drug raids conducted with SWAT teams on a head shop. Spice - which you can buy at gas stations because it's no more meant to be swallowed than a pine tree car air freshener is - the subject of a lengthy drug investigation. The store owner's family members getting thrown about and arrested. All because one hookup sesh with a barely legal teen was not enough. Allegedly.

Regardless, let this be a lesson to all of us. To beware of influential people who can bring the full weight of the government down upon you to serve their own interests. To be careful about who we have sex with in our freshman year in a new town. But mostly to think twice before we fall in love with a viral video because it involves cute kitties and bumbling, technologically inept olds. People aren't always as harmlessly adorable as they seem.