“Ideal Living is in no way connected with JKP,” Spiegel’s lawyers write. On the sect’s own California filing, Spiegel and Williams are its Los Angeles temple’s chief executive and chief financial officer.
Ideal Living answered two documentaries with a demand for correction of about twenty pages, read on Reckless Ben’s channel on October 11. Its one sentence on the sect is about the company’s money. The company’s two owners hold the temple’s top two offices on a state filing, and one of them is the surety on the guru’s bond. Eight of its twelve points are about the two former employees who talked. The rule it sets for Reckless Ben, that an accusation is not the conduct, is one the letter breaks first: the “appalling history” it cites is a suit filed twice against Najar, never served on him, and dismissed with prejudice.
Ideal Living’s answer to the question two documentaries put to it is one sentence long: “Ideal Living is in no way connected with JKP, and none of Ideal Living’s money has ever gone to JKP or any JKP organization or charity.” The sentence names the company. It does not name Peter Spiegel and Katie Williams, who own it. On the California Statement of Information for Radha Krishna Dham, the sect’s temple in Tarzana, they are its chief executive and its chief financial officer. Spiegel is the court-recorded surety and indemnitor on the bond that let the sect’s guru leave the country before his sentence, and the president named on the 2008 Texas incorporation of the JKP Foundation. The letter mentions none of it.
The letter is dated September 16, 2026, twenty days after the first documentary went up. Amy R. Lucas of O’Melveny & Myers in Los Angeles signed it; Eric Amdursky of the same firm and Nick Soltman of Kinsella Holley Iser Kump Steinsapir are copied. Soltman was the company’s lawyer in the Najar case in 2025. O’Melveny is new to the file. The letter calls itself “a demand for correction under that section” and gives five business days; the section is not shown. Soltman declined a call and a recorded interview, and the further questions were answered in writing on O’Melveny’s letterhead. On Sunday evening Reckless Ben read from it on camera, with Myra Nishizaki and David Najar answering on a call.
In the video: 0:06 a paragraph of the letter · 2:42 the first page and the signature · 7:10 the passage on close calls · 16:11 the sentence about JKP · 25:05 the former student · 51:24 the papers sent as evidence · 54:35 the demand
What the letter asks for
Five business days, two videos, and the comments switched off.
As so often happens, the truth is far more, well, boring than fiction: in this case, there were no grand conspiracies, bribes, payoffs to reporters, or the like. [Najar] and his girlfriend Myra attempted to extort Ideal Living by threatening to make false claims about them unless they received $100 million. In the years since that failed, they have presented all of their evidence to four separate courts and half a dozen journalists that we know of, and all of them, acting independently, reached the same conclusion: there’s no there there.
We demand that, within five business days, you either remove the Videos or publish a prominent correction on your YouTube and Patreon channels and in the Videos addressing the false, misleading, and defamatory statements. Disable comments on both Videos; Your failure to comply within the time prescribed by that statute will be relevant to the remedies available to our clients.
California’s retraction statute, section 48a of the Civil Code, is the one that provides for a demand for correction and a clock to answer it. A demand “must be served within 20 days after knowledge of the publication,” and the publisher then has “three weeks after service” to run a correction. The first documentary went up on August 27; day twenty was September 16, the date on the letter. The five business days are the letter’s own. The statute gives three weeks, and nothing in it makes the shorter clock binding on anyone. The statute covers “a daily or weekly news publication,” one “that publishes at least once a week.” It also says a good-faith belief in the truth of what was published “shall not constitute actual malice.” Whether it reaches a channel that posted twice in August and once since is a question for a court.
Twelve points, against the record
What the letter says Reckless Ben must tell his audience, beside the papers this site carries. The fourth point is one sentence with two claims, graded apart.
| The letter | The record | |
|---|---|---|
| Najar is Nishizaki’s “live-in romantic partner,” not just her friend, and their denial is a “verifiable falsehood.” | The company’s word. Spiegel swore he is “the boyfriend”; its motions say “live-in girlfriend” and “longtime domestic partner”; the court wrote “purported romantic partner.” Under oath Najar said “We’re not domestic partners,” then “Partners,” then “That we’re in life together during this incredibly difficult time.” Her own February 8, 2023 email to the company calls him “my partner.” On camera he calls them “homies” and business partners. Nothing about the sect turns on it. | UNRESOLVED |
| Neither is a whistleblower; she found what she found “by extremely basic Googling.” | Her February 8, 2023 email to the company says “members of their temple/ashram are employees of the company” and names one. Her complaint pleads hires from the religious organization, free housing and higher pay to facilitate donations. No court has ruled on it; the case went to arbitration and settled. | ASSERTED |
| Spiegel ended his relationship with Saraswati on the day of the conviction, in March 2011, and has testified so. | After that day he stayed surety and indemnitor on the guru’s bond, intervened in the forfeiture case and withdrew; the bond file sets it out. In 2025 his own lawyers told a court that the building in Tarzana is a meditation center he is building. | ASSERTED |
| “Ideal Living is in no way connected with JKP.” | On public filings its two owners are the temple’s chief executive and chief financial officer (its California Statement of Information); one of them is the surety and indemnitor on the guru’s bond and the president named on the JKP Foundation’s 2008 Texas incorporation. The sentence names the company and not them. | REFUTED |
| “None of Ideal Living’s money has ever gone to JKP or any JKP organization or charity.” | Nothing on this site traces a payment from the company’s accounts, and the sect’s organizations file no public Form 990, so no public ledger exists on either side. The company’s audited books, described in federal court, could settle it. | UNRESOLVED |
| Najar “had been sued by one of his former high school students where he was a teacher, for grooming and then sexually assaulting her while she was a minor.” | Sued twice with the school’s religious order, in 1999 and 2001, and never served. The first suit she dropped in eleven weeks. The second ended on May 10, 2002, after the order paid her an undisclosed sum, with her dismissal of the whole action with prejudice. No finding against him. The Times: an alleged relationship that began “just before her 18th birthday.” O’Melveny in writing: “We never said that he was criminally charged.” Read here in September. | UNRESOLVED |
| She did not work there for fifteen years. | True. Her complaint pleads her most recent stint from March 4, 2019; Spiegel’s declaration says she “worked at Ideal Living off and on, most recently from 2019 to 2023”; her own email counts “three different stints.” Reckless Ben corrects his own line: eight years in all, over fifteen. | CONFIRMED |
| She “acknowledged that she had known for years that Mr. Spiegel had posted the bond for Saraswati 18 years ago.” | The letter does not show the testimony. Her February 8, 2023 email to the company says she was “previously aware that Katie and Peter were members of the organization” and “completely unaware of the misdeeds of the ashram,” and describes the bail and bond as part of what she and Spiegel “addressed” the day before. On camera, and in Reckless Ben’s email to the lawyers, her position is that she knew basic facts of Spiegel’s religious affiliation and learned the rest later. | UNRESOLVED |
| His “consulting engagement at Ideal Living did not work out”; he “misstated his experience in business-to-business and school sales.” | Spiegel’s sworn declaration, as the court summarized it: not renewed because, “among other reasons, Najar had misstated his experience in business-to-business sales.” Najar shows a $39,750 proposal timeline on camera and says he quit. | ASSERTED |
| She had pushed for him to be “re-hired by the company only one week earlier.” | The company’s own complaint, paragraph 8, as its lawyers quoted it in March 2025. Najar says a new operations executive wanted him back and that he has the emails. | ASSERTED |
| The two “approached Mr. Spiegel with made-up, false accusations in an attempt to extort more than $100 million for their own gain.” | Spiegel’s declaration and his police statement, never tested at trial. Najar admitted under oath saying nine figures to “scare them a little bit.” Judge Salkin found a substantial probability the company would prevail on civil extortion, on a record to which Najar filed a brief and no evidence; the case settled thirteen days later. Both rulings, read here. | ASSERTED |
| The founders and staff “were receiving death threats as a direct result of your Videos”; comments must be disabled. | The letter, as shown, gives no number and no sender; 89 is Reckless Ben’s recollection of it. Threats sent to the company privately leave no public trace. The public comment sections do: in the 2,500 most-upvoted comments on the two videos, none threatens the founders, and a handful wish violence on traffickers or abusers in general. | UNRESOLVED |
| He planned to “get like nice cameras and stuff and nice lighting” because it could be funny. | Not a claim about the company. The letter quotes a conversation among the three and does not say how its authors came to hold it. | UNRESOLVED |
Eight of the twelve points concern the two former employees. Two concern Reckless Ben, the threats and the cameras. One concerns Spiegel and the guru, and rests on Spiegel’s own testimony. One concerns the company, and it is drafted to the company: Ideal Living’s money means the company’s accounts, not its owners’. The sect’s organizations are churches for tax purposes and file no public Form 990, so no public ledger can show a transfer in either direction, and this site has never claimed one. What the public record shows is the two owners inside the sect’s own paperwork. They are the temple’s current officers. Spiegel was the bond’s surety and the foundation’s president in 2008, and the bond’s litigant in 2011. In the company’s own 2025 court filing, the building in Tarzana is a meditation center he is building. Nothing read or shown from the letter addresses any of it.
The letter’s own standard
Accusation is not conduct, the lawyers’ reply tells Reckless Ben. Their letter calls a suit never served on Najar, settled by a religious order and decided by no court, his appalling history.
These are not close calls or contested interpretations. In each instance your sources have told you a verifiable falsehood that their own sworn testimony and documents, in evidence you already possess, directly refute. The question is not whether [Najar] and [Nishizaki] are credible; they are not. It is whether you can continue publishing and monetizing their false and defamatory claims knowing they are false. You cannot, and they must be corrected.
Read against its own exhibits and the court record, the passage does not hold. The letter’s claims, each graded:
| The letter claims | The record | |
|---|---|---|
| “Ideal Living is in no way connected with JKP.” | Its two owners are the temple’s chief executive and chief financial officer on the temple’s California filing; one is the bond’s surety and the foundation’s 2008 president. The sentence omits them. | REFUTED |
| “None of Ideal Living’s money has ever gone to JKP.” | No public ledger on either side; nothing on this site shows a payment. The company’s audited books could settle it, and nobody has asked. | UNRESOLVED |
| The sources’ denial of a romance is a “verifiable falsehood” that “their own sworn testimony and documents” refute. | The exhibits sent: her 2023 email, “he is my partner,” and his “I love her,” cut from “I love her, but she cannot tell a story.” His sworn words: “We’re not domestic partners.” | REFUTED |
| “Four separate courts” all “reached the same conclusion: there’s no there there.” | Two findings, on Najar’s emails and on the probability of an extortion claim; the arbitration private; no court reached the sect. | REFUTED |
| Nishizaki “acknowledged that she had known for years” about the bond. | The testimony is not shown. Her 2023 email: aware they were members, “completely unaware of the misdeeds of the ashram.” | UNRESOLVED |
| The former student’s suit is Najar’s “appalling history,” which he “failed to disclose.” | A pleading. Two complaints named him, in 1999 and 2001, and neither was served on him. She dropped the first. The second ended with prejudice for everyone when the order paid her. No finding, no charge. The lawyers’ own reply: “We never said that he was criminally charged.” | UNRESOLVED |
| The footnote’s rule: an accusation in a lawsuit is not the conduct, a difference it says Reckless Ben failed to recognize. | The letter it defends states the former student’s accusation, which no court decided, as Najar’s “appalling history.” By the footnote’s own rule, the letter fails first. | REFUTED |
| Reckless Ben “cannot” go on publishing the claims “knowing they are false.” | No court has found any statement in the documentaries false, and the letter cites none. The statute it invokes: a good-faith belief in truth “shall not constitute actual malice.” | ASSERTED |
| She did not work there for fifteen years. | True. Eight years over fifteen, conceded on camera. | CONFIRMED |
We also note the irony of your newfound attention to detail, as we do not recall you recognizing the major difference between accurately reporting that someone was accused in a lawsuit and telling viewers that the underlying conduct actually occurred when publishing your defamatory Videos. 9/24/26 Email at 2. To the contrary, you did not hesitate to falsely declare to 34 million viewers that our clients had actually engaged in illegal, despicable, vile conduct, without offering any qualifications whatsoever.
The footnote, in the lawyers’ written reply, lectures him on the difference between an accusation and the conduct. The letter it defends calls the former student’s suit “this appalling history” that Najar “failed to disclose.” She filed it in 1999 and again in 2001. It was never served on him. A religious order paid to settle it, and she dismissed it with prejudice. No court decided it. Asked whether he was ever charged, the lawyers wrote: “We never said that he was criminally charged.” The standard the reply sets is the one the letter failed first.
The passage’s last line is that Reckless Ben “cannot” go on publishing his sources’ claims “knowing they are false.” The statute it invokes says a good-faith belief in the truth of what was published “shall not constitute actual malice.” Whether the founders are public figures, and what Reckless Ben knew, are questions a court decides on evidence. The letter answers them by assertion. No court has found any statement in the documentaries false, and the letter cites none. On every point about the sect, what it cites is the company’s word.
“Four separate courts”
Two findings, both about David Najar’s conduct, neither about the sect.
The four are on this site. Ideal Living, Spiegel and Williams sued Najar for civil extortion in September 2023 and settled with him in April 2025; the case was dismissed that June, with the court keeping the power to enforce the deal. Nishizaki sued the company, Spiegel and its human-resources manager in September 2023; her case went to private arbitration two months later and was dismissed with prejudice in June 2025 under the same settlement. Spiegel and Williams obtained a three-year civil harassment order against Najar in January 2024. The arbitration sat in private. A fifth forum the letter does not count is the federal filter case, where last September a magistrate judge refused to let the company block Nishizaki’s deposition.
Two of those produced findings, and this site has read both at length. Judge Karen Moskowitz found, on the civil harassment standard, that at least two of the anonymous emails sent to the founders came from Najar. Judge Valerie Salkin found in March 2025 a substantial probability that the company would prevail on its extortion claim, on a record to which Najar filed a brief and no evidence. Neither court was asked whether the company is tied to the sect, and neither said so.
The emails
What the lawyers would not answer.
Asked when Spiegel says his relationship with Saraswati ended, the lawyers answered that he testified it ended the day of the conviction. Told that the sources call that testimony inaccurate, they replied that this was “an accusation of extremely serious federal crimes that your email does not even attempt to support.” Joe Kelly, the early member, says in the second documentary that he was in the room when the guru asked early followers to create businesses to fund the organization, and that he heard him speak to Spiegel and Williams. Asked to answer him, the lawyers declined, writing that the company “will not participate in or legitimize” what it called Reckless Ben’s attempts to capitalize on harm already done. The letter itself says the statements “will not be cured by being ‘debated’ in new videos you can further monetize.”
Asked for “the strongest primary-source evidence” of the demands, they sent Spiegel’s declaration of February 2025, a page of a hearing transcript, and the sentence “Mr. Spiegel has testified as such under penalty of perjury.” The declaration is Spiegel’s own sworn account. That exchange, and the recording the company asked a court to keep out, are the next report.
What the sources say back
Najar on the call, against the record. Two answers hold, two go against him, and the rest are his word.
I can’t even name four courts in the United States. One court. He took me to court to a TRO hearing.
The claim that was brought against me was never brought against me. I never was served papers. I never was deposed. I never had a lawyer. I never even knew that it existed. Whatever that is, there were no charges brought. It was brought to the police and there were no charges.
They’re AI generated. There’s something called AI at this moment, and so we were using code to kind of put things together.
I know he’s litigious.
I wanted him to sue me. I desperately wanted him to sue me, because this is what I thought, maybe naively, but I believe in it today: I wanted to get to discovery.
| Said on the call | The record | |
|---|---|---|
| Najar: “One court. He took me to court to a TRO hearing.” | Four forums on the docket, listed above, and a fifth in federal court. | REFUTED |
| Najar: “I never was served papers.” | Three courts’ registers name him and show no proof of service on him and nothing in his name: Los Angeles 1999, Orange County 2001, Los Angeles 2002. In federal court between them, only the order and the school were served, removed the case and answered. The first suit ended at her request eleven weeks in. The second ended on May 10, 2002, on her dismissal of the entire action with prejudice. His 2025 motion says the suit “was never even served on Mr. Najar” and that he “does not recall even having been served” with it. | CONFIRMED |
| Najar: he “never even knew that it existed.” | His word; no record reaches what he knew between 1999 and 2002. By March 2025 his own motion addressed the suit by name. | ASSERTED |
| Najar: “there were no charges.” | No criminal case against him is on any record this site has found, and the lawyers’ reply concedes none. | CONFIRMED |
| Najar: the emails were “AI generated”; “I wanted him to sue me.” | Under oath in October 2024: “I did not send it,” the emails were “created by code,” and he knew “the people who” did and would not name them. On camera: “we were using code,” and he wanted to be sued. The restraining-order court found at least two of the emails were his. | CONFIRMED |
| Najar: Spiegel “perjured himself” at the restraining-order hearing, saying the relationship ended on the day of conviction and correcting himself after a break. | Only part of that transcript is on this site, and it has no such exchange. Najar cross-examined Spiegel himself that day. His claim. | UNRESOLVED |
| Najar: the IRS “pulled up” and saw Miracle Blades and AbFlexes at the ashram. | No record of it. The Statesman reporting he cites says the ashram built commercial structures for rental income. | UNRESOLVED |
| Najar: the settlement required deleting the recordings; three newsrooms had copies. | No document. The next report. | ASSERTED |
On camera Najar describes the emails in the first person: “we were using code.” Under oath he said he did not send them and would not name who did. The January 2024 finding answered the question for at least two of them. The letter says the two wanted a hundred million dollars; he says he wanted discovery. Both accounts are untested.
What this changes
The company’s position now exists outside a court file. It denies a connection between the company and the sect in one sentence about the company’s money, while the company’s owners hold the temple’s top two offices on a state filing anyone can order. It offers, as its best evidence of extortion, the sworn word of the man who says he was extorted. It presents as Najar’s history a suit that was filed twice, never served on him and dismissed with prejudice. It quotes a private conversation among the three people it writes about without saying how its authors came to have it.
Two questions follow, and the reply form carries both. The first is whether any of the company’s money reached the sect, which the audited books its lawyers described in federal court could answer. The second is what was said in Spiegel’s office on February 7, 2023, which is on a recording the company asked a court to exclude.
Sources. Reckless Ben’s video, ynmEkCa21-4, published Sunday, October 11, 2026 at 5:43 p.m. PDT: the paragraph of the letter at 0:06, its first and signature pages at 2:42, the passage on close calls at 7:10, the sentence on JKP at 16:11, the former student and the appalling-history sentence at 25:05, the footnote at 28:04, the request for evidence and the reply at 50:59 to 52:11, the demand at 54:35; Najar at 1:13, 13:39, 24:12, 25:50, 42:10 and 47:07; the threats passage at 53:00. Civil Code section 48a. The State Bar of California’s licensee records for Amy Riley Lucas (264034) and Eric Jordan Amdursky (180288). The Los Angeles Superior Court’s case summary for EC028060, Graham v. Najar et al., filed September 8, 1999, and the Orange County Superior Court’s case record for 01CC04631, Graham v. Sisters of Providence in California, filed April 6, 2001, with the federal docket of that case between its removal on May 16, 2001 and its remand on October 26, 2001, and the Los Angeles Superior Court’s case summary for EC034373, the same case received on March 18, 2002 and dismissed with prejudice on May 10, 2002; Najar’s motion in limine of March 19, 2025. The complaints, declarations, rulings and settlement papers in LASC 23VECV04262, 23VECV03833 and 23VERO01608, read at the docket report, Spiegel’s sworn account, his police statement, the two rulings and the Nishizaki report; Nishizaki’s email of February 8, 2023 as Exhibit 1 to the Spiegel declaration; the federal filter case at the protective-order report; the bond, and the California Statement of Information for Radha Krishna Dham (EIN 88-4405508), at The bond; the foundations at The money. The second documentary, CHID7-wdowU, for Joe Kelly at 10:20. The comment sample: the 1,254 and 1,256 top-ranked comments YouTube returned for the two documentaries, read for any threat against a named person.
The JKP Map · Prakashanand Saraswati is the only person on this site convicted of a crime.