LAUREL HESS of HAMPR INVESTIGATION. FICTION FROM REALITY. BASED ON A TRUE STORY.
HAMPR REVIEW
Many of us have heard the phrase "stranger than fiction." I know I have countless times. However, I never imagined encountering a real-life story depicting that notion like the one I will be addressing here and investigating over the coming months.
I recently learned a story that plunged me into an observer's-view-Dejavú experience. It was pretty surreal.
Last year I became familiar with the Apple TV Original series ‘Truth Be Told’, starring Octavia Spencer as Poppy Parnell, a celebrated true-crime Podcaster relentlessly pursuing truth and justice. The series features other A-list actors who co-star with her throughout the season. I found the show to be very entertaining and engaging. In fact, it is the show that sparked my interest in other Apple Original series shows and inspired the title of my blog.
Pertinent to this piece, my first investigative article, the show's last season, Season 2, of Truth Be Told, featuring Kate Hudson as Micah Keith and Gabrielle Union as Eva, is seemingly based on a real-life story that could not be more astonishing.
Laurel Hess, also known as Laurel J Davis, married to Rodney Wayne Hess, vice president of Rally Marketing, is sighted on several articles and online outlets as the CEO and founder of a tech start-up based in Lafayette, Louisiana, who had a bright idea stemming from a grocery delivery moment that later turned to her company called Hampr. A MEDIUM article titled ‘Inspirational Women Leaders of Tech: …. Laurel Hess of Hampr is the founder and CEO of Hampr, a peer-to-peer on-demand laundry platform,' can also be found online.
Understandably, such accreditation is admirable and worth celebrating. However, this appreciation soon turned to what I can best describe as a Twilight Zone, nauseating repulsion when I discovered troubling details about this brilliant idea that Laurel Hess boldly claims to have generated herself “circa 2018”. Researching and reading about her story, and the information I received, I immediately recalled The Apple TV Series Truth Be Told and binged watched the entire season over again. At first, I thought, “could the storyline of this season have inspired this idea for Laurel Hess of Hampr?” or “could someone who knew of the events surrounding how Laurel Hess truly came about this alleged bright idea of hers and her claim to fame of innovation and brilliance have written about her real-life actions, turned it into a storyline and submitted it to the producers of Truth Be Told, unbeknownst to them that this is partially based on a real-life story?” I began researching the information I was made aware of, and I was even more dumbfounded by what I discovered.
Spoiler Alert: Micah Keith (Kate Hudson) is a Caucasian woman who received multiple millions of dollars in investments from investors to establish a company called SHELTER, stemming from a book that she published that was allegedly based on her life story of struggle, challenges, discrimination and overcoming difficulties that she effectively turned to power by writing the book. Fast forward to the series season, Micah Keith implores her lifelong friend and decorated podcaster, Poppy Parnell (Octavia Spencer), to investigate the murder of her husband, who was discovered in a precarious position at the time of death. The police, like typical, rushed to conclusions and closed the case, barely investigating the true motivation of the murder and discovering the perpetrator(s) of the crime.
Due to Poppy Parnell’s incessant appetite for truths to be revealed, she eventually discovers that not only is her friend a liar who would stop at nothing to protect her empire, founded on lies, sabotage, and abuse of power, but she also discovers that Micah Keith (Kate Hudson), stole Eva’s (Gabrielle Union), a black woman's, entire life story from her diary, claimed it to be hers, published a book using all of Eva’s journal and artwork and then received millions in investments to build her company Shelter.
The incredible similarities of the fictional story of Micah Keith (Kate Hudson) and Eva (Gabrielle Union) to the story of Laurel Hess, aka Laurel J Davis, of Hampr and the true, truly inspirational woman and innovator, the woman who actually invented this idea and was the first to legally file it with the government, proven by records with the USPTO (United States Patent and Trademark Office), is Ahavel Aborishade.
Ahavel Aborishade is a black woman, like Eva in the show Truth Be Told.
This is Ahavel Aborishade.
The critical difference between the fictional and real-life story of Ahavel Aborishade, the creative inventor and innovator of this genius idea and system she called and coined peer-to-peer on-demand ‘Laundryshare’ but named the app NEATTUCK — evidenced by the brilliance, attention to detail, as well as the originality of her work; as I got to see it for myself — is that she wasn't and isn't an institutionalized woman, with any form of mental illness, treatment or diagnosis or anything of that nature. As a matter of fact, she is the CEO, creator, and creative director of more than two companies, NeatTuck being one of them.
Ahavel Aborishade's initial trademark filing for her peer-to-peer laundryshare software application invention was filed on February 28, 2017, by her then IP (Intellectual Property) and business development attorney, Stephen Charles McArthur of McArthur Law in Beverly Hills, California — a year and six months before Laurel Hess's tryhampr.com domain was created.
She explains that contrary to her then-attorney's advice, she insisted on a somewhat vague description of her idea in the trademark filing for NEATTUCK to protect it from potential plagiarism by others before the completion of her app development, which she was designing from scratch at the time of first filing in February 2017.
On March 22, 2018, a provisional patent application titled 'Geotag based, on-demand, peer-to-peer (people to people or individual to individual) laundry-share mobile application that operates synonymous to Uber, Lyft, and Airbnb' was filed by Ahavel Aborishade via LegalZoom (image below) and registered with the USPTO by May 10, 2018 — three months before Laurel Hess's tryhampr.com domain was created.
Additionally, she moved forward with filing a conversion of her granted provisional patent to a permanent utility patent filed by Sean Lynch with the McArthur law firm, which was filed on May 10, 2019, two days before the provisional patent expired on May 12, 2019. That record is located here.
Furthermore, a trademark filing for the phrase Laundryshare (amongst others) was also filed (as previously planned and scheduled back in January 2017) by Zachary Strebeck with McArthur Law, Stephen McArthur's law firm.
Records of her preliminary provisional patent filing containing detailed descriptions and outlining the workings of her on-demand peer-to-peer laundryshare system invention can be found here online under Documents and Transactions, Abstract and Specifications (can also be seen in the embedded video below). The would-be app's functions became public when it was filed with the trademark and the United States patent office, and it out-dates Laurel Hess's claim of being the originator of this idea. I noticed in the LegalZoom status check record above that it stated they were conducting a thorough "Peace of Mind Review" before finalizing the provisional application for the patent. The subsequent granting of the provisional patent obviously denotes that no other application or filing of this idea or invention had been registered or filed by anyone else. The utility patent notation also corroborates that Ahavel Aborishade is the "first to file" inventor. That said, could Laurel Hess or her husband, Rodney Hess, have any connection or association with LegalZoom or the United States patent office where they had access to, and then plagiarized all the details of Ms. Ahavel Aborishade's app idea and invention that she now claims as her own?
Interestingly, during my research of this story, I was conversing with an IP and general business practice attorney regarding this topic, and he voluntarily divulged that there are people who make their living by stalking government business filing websites, such as JUSTIA, prowling, and looking for business ideas to steal and copy. This was perplexing to hear.
Ahavel Aborishade also has records of her submission of this invention to SXSW (South by South West) 'Release It' in January of 2018, where judges review your creation for approval to be featured in the event to display your innovation in a public setting to potential investors and interested parties. Although her submission for NeatTuck was not selected, it sparked the question of Laurel Hess or her husband Rodney Hess's possible connection to SXSW and its judges who review this information. Are SXSW judges also a part of the prowlers looking for ideas they could claim for themselves before the inventor gets to release it?
Ahavel Aborishade explains that she initially submitted the provisional patent filing via LegalZoom under her corporation name in January of 2018 before applying to SXSW to protect her invention before submitting it to the convention; however, the USPTO replied stating that the patent cannot be filed or registered under a company name and must be registered under a person's name. So she had to re-submit the application under her name. She finalized and re-submitted the corrected application on March 22, 2018, and the provisional patent was marked as received by May 10, 2018.
NewsWatch Television aired Ahavel Aborishade's app NeatTuck on national television on Monday, July 30, 2018. A copy of that segment is viewable here on NewsWatch Television's Vimeo post.
It is also embedded here.
NeatTuck – World’s First Peer-to-Peer Laundry Share App | NewsWatch Review
KillerStartups.com featured an article piece on NEATTUCK on August 6, 2018, telling the world about making money at home using your washing machine and phone to get your laundry done and make extra money on the side with the NeatTuck app twelve days before tryhampr.com domain was created.
As briefly mentioned above about Laurel Hess's alleged bright idea that she claims she came up with "Circa 2018", a simple ICANN domain lookup shows that tryhampr.com was created on August 22, 2018, A year and six months after Ahavel Aborishade's trademark filing and five months after Ahavel Aborishade's provisional patent application submission via LegalZoom.com.
NeatTuck's Twitter page reveals a post dating back to September 5, 2017.
NeatTuck's first unarchived Instagram post dates back to July 19, 2018, a month before Hampr's.
Tryhampr's first Instagram activity was posted on November 21, 2018.
Ahavel Aborishade recently made several disquieting discoveries of nefarious activities, orchestrations, and cover-ups regarding her invention that had been transpiring in the background, unbeknownst to her, since the very early stages of the ground-up formation of her company and her app shortly after her discussion and retention of her then-attorney Stephen Charles McArthur in January 2017. She had suspicions earlier on and questionable activities to support her instincts; however, they were all too obscure to pinpoint or to deem as evidence to follow up on. We will dive into those activities further in another posting. We are focused on Laurel Hess and Hampr in this posting. The troubling extent it appears she went to claim something that is evidently not hers. Some of which we will not be able to cover in this article but another.
One of those troubling discoveries that Ahavel Aborishade recently made is on display in this video below, which shows her hacked Slidebean.com online pitch deck(s) that were all last edited in December 2018, that she always kept private and only shared by invite only with very minute and specific business prospects in order to track the viewers and activities of her pitch deck. The video reveals three Game of Thrones fictitious characters, two male and a female, who had been accessing every version and every page of her NEATTUCK pitch decks for months and years. Ahavel explains that she made this discovery when she came upon Laurel Hess's Pitch.com pitch deck and instantly recognized her work from the words, outline, and layout of Laurel Hess's pitch deck because she worked on her pitch deck very, very diligently for months. 'Creating her pitch deck with extensive research conducted not only by her but her market and financial analyst team as her invention at the time was new and not done before.
She recalls reports from her legal team experiencing difficulty with insurance companies modeling insurance construct for NEATTUCK because the concept was new and had never been done before.
The video (image) in the link below shows the hackers hacking NeatTuck’s unpublished online pitch deck that lead Ms. Aborishade right to Hampr, Laurel Hess, and partners.
Back to the video above, Laurel Hess, the CEO, is the only one among her constituents with a marketing background and no computer technology experience. The other three she lists on her pitch deck, two males and a female, are computer hardware and software programmers and developers with extensive backgrounds in this field, which we will address further.
Sure, we can say these two women may have had similar ideas at closely related times. As innocent as that would be, or as I would like to say it is, I beg to differ and disavow this suggestion because of everything listed above, particularly the video that shows the hacking activity that led Ms. Ahavel Aborishade right to the culprits, with the scrabbling of her words used to create their pitch deck.
Laurel Hess's February 24, 2022, pitch deck content tracks back to NeatTuck's pitch deck, created four years ago and last edited in December 2018. The almost verbatim copy of NeatTuck's pitch deck with subtle variations to Laurel Hess's is challenging to dismiss, even down to the name of the people doing the washing. Laurel Hess's Hampr handbook lists them as 'Washrs,' without an 'e'; this is taken from Ahavel Aborishade's provisional patent filing description of her invention and how it works. Washers are simply called Washers in Ahavel Aborishade's app and patent filing description. Laurel Hess varied it just by eliminating the 'e' in Washers. Furthermore, a keen observation of the shape, orientation, and handle positioning of Hampr's branded carrying bag appears to be a botched bargain attempt to imitate the uniqueness of Ahavel Aborishade's custom-designed carrying bags for NEATTUCK. This reminded me of Cardi B, the world-famous female rapper who opted for a subtle variation (a flip) of Bacardi to obviate trademark lawsuits against her. This is not an affront to Cardi B at all. I actually like her originality and tenacity.
If I may be bold enough to point out the obvious, this reveals premeditated, intentional, and deliberate plagiarism with concerted efforts. This is no coincidence. Ask yourself this question, if this is your idea and your work, why hack someone else's account in groups (that amount to the genders and number of tech partners in your company) with fictitious Game of Thrones characters to steal and copy ideas and information to create your pitch deck and literarily everything about your company, your alleged idea? Why are there so many uncanny similarities, after the hacking of Ahavel Aborishade's pitch deck completed in 2018 to the one Laurel Hess published on the internet in February of 2022, nearly four years after Ahavel Aborishade's? This reminds me of the classic high school classmate who did not do their homework but copies off of an honor roll student's work and submits it as theirs, implying that they did the work to get the grade. In essential words, it is cheating and theft because there's money involved, and at the very least, it is reprehensible plagiarism and pirating.
Upon viewing NeatTuck's entire pitch deck, page-by-page, and seeing the detail, the creativity, and cited research, in comparison to Hampr's February 24, 2022 pitch deck on Pitch.com, it is indisputably evident to me that Laurel Hess not only copied everything on her pitch deck from Ahavel Aboriushade's but that she likely used websites such as WordTune, QuilBot, and Rewritetool.net to scrabble and rephrase the contents plagiarized from Ahavel Aborishade's NeatTuck's pitch deck to make her own, from the first page to the last.
While the culprits who hacked NeatTuck's pitch deck masked their identities using Game of Thrones fictional characters, the content on Hampr's pitch deck, again page by page, the flow and design trace the hacking right to Laurel Hess and Hampr. It is right there on display. This might be just my opinion, but it seems to me that anyone who comes up with such a genius idea would have a precise or nearly precise date of when they conceived something so profound.
Digging a little further into Laurel Hess, her pitch deck for Hampr, and her teammates, Spencer Hoyt is listed as a Co-founder and lifelong entrepreneur. Ryan Leblanc is listed as CTO with 15 plus years of engineering and is a Marine Corps veteran, and Jennifer Raggio is listed as VP of Operations with 15 plus years in marketing and operations.
Brief research into Spencer B Hoyt and Ryan A Leblanc reveals that both have an extensive computer programming and software development background. Jennifer K Raggio also has a background in computer technology. Her work experience is listed as an IT Specialist, and she worked at New Horizons Computer Learning Centers. Ryan Hoyt's work history reveals him as President of Comit Developers in Lafayette, Louisiana. Ryan LeBlanc's work history shows that he worked with Comcast Spotlight as a software engineer, Aerion Rentals as IT Consultant, and CBM (Computers for Business Management), headquartered in Breaux Bridge, Louisiana as a Computer programmer, to name a few.
From my research and inquiry, web developers and programmers are taught and trained how to hack into computers, online hosted platforms, technical devices, and internet-based/hosted platforms as part of their studies to be able to detect them, trace their origins, and resolve them in their occupational fields. With all their collective experience, it is easy to see how effortless it was to hack Ahavel Aborishade's pitch deck, stealing all her work, her ideas, and literarily her entire invention.
Remember that four key figures are listed in Laurel Hess's pitch deck. Excluding herself as the CEO with marketing experience, all three of her partners work in software programming and web development, computer programming, and IT at advanced levels. Is it a coincidence that three Game of Thrones characters illegally accessed (hacked) NeatTuck's online pitch deck account consistently and repeatedly? Why would someone or people illegally hack into another's account, plagiarize their work, copying everything from government records and online submissions if this was indeed their idea or invention?
From what I have been made aware of, seen, and read thus far, Ahavel Aborishade went to great lengths and expensed a lot in legal expenses to protect her invention and her idea. The government records support that this is indeed her idea and creation. Only someone who knows they have something precious on their hands will have this much-vested interest in documenting and protecting it at all costs.
It is obvious to me that the only idea Laurel Hess came up with, "circa 2018", was stealing Ahavel Aborishade's invention and her work in its entirety.
This brings me to my next set of questions. How did Laurel Hess truly encounter this "idea" that she claims to be hers? Was it through Ahavel Aborishade's government filings to protect her idea, via LegalZoom? Was it through Ahavel Aborishade’s submission to SXSW (South by Southwest)? Was it through an employee of Ahavel Aborishade's or worse, the unthinkable, through the very people and institutions she paid and trusted to act with integrity and to do the right thing, which is to properly advise her how to protect her idea and to register her invention without clandestinely taking it for themselves? Her attorneys? LegalZoom staffs? The USPTO (United States Patent and Trademark Office) employees and officials themselves? Was there abuse of power involved here?
Apparently backed by Techstars, announced that she raised $5 Million with Gurtin ventures, owned and operated by William Gurtin and Grant Gurtin, a father and son duo. I wonder if either of them is aware of the true origination of the idea they have invested millions of dollars in, or if they were abreast of the plagiarizing and pirating all along and "turned a blind eye" or "turned the other cheek" so long as a return of investment is achieved. Is this part of a bigger agenda; therefore, this sort of behavior was unrebuked or encouraged by Gurtin Ventures? Did anyone associated with Gurtin Ventures assist in deliberately pirating Ahavel Aborishade / NeatTuck's intellectual property and assets?
I wonder if the team at Techstars knows that Laurel Hess's "idea" is wholly stolen from Ahavel Aborishade.
A photo of Rodney Hess holding a piece of paper that states BE YOU is sighted in an article by the daily advertiser. Did he at any point consider this statement and advised his wife to do the same rather than claim another's woman's life achievement or was hypocrisy and duplicity all well and good as long as there is fame and fortune in it for him as well?
So what happened to NeatTuck and its inventor, the authentic and original inventor of peer-to-peer on-demand laundryshare software application and system? Why didn't this (black) woman, Ahavel Aborishade, publicize herself with her brilliant and lucrative idea as Laurel Hess did with an innovation she misappropriated through multiple means?
Was she trying to protect herself and her invention from someone or something?
Should we anticipate more covert and overt smear campaigns, rumor mills, fake news, and new deplorable narratives that paint her as a villain of sorts (in this specific matter) or familiar strategies of "victim shaming" to distort and distract from what is very plainly questionable and very fishy here?
Should we anticipate a change in conception stories by Laurel Hess and crew and similar 'copycats' who did the same thing she did? Are there other possible alliances and organizations in cahoots with Laurel Hess of Hampr, who may also claim this to be their invention or idea? Should we anticipate backdating of articles and changing stories to dilute the truth and change the narrative, perhaps to cause confusion, of who the actual inventor is and what miscarriage of justice may have occurred here with Ahavel Aborishade, her invention laundryshare and her app NeatTuck?
Will we see back-tracking attempts surrounding this invention by other related parties?
Was there an advantage that Laurel Hess and other potential or alleged claimants of this invention used to out-sound and drown out the original creator of this invention?
Are any other organizations, institutions, societies, and key figures connected to Laurel Hess and her business partners or Gurtin Ventures at play here?
What role did Stephen Charles McArthur play in all of this?
Are any of Laurel Hess's partners associated with Stephen McArthur or McArthur Law firm associates in any way, and is McArthur Law affiliated with Gurtin Ventures or its associates in any form at all?
Did Stephen Charles McArthur or associates in his law firm collaborate with the USPTO (United States Patent and Trademark Office) employees and affiliates to do something venal here?
Why were all of Ahavel Aborishade's filings met with almost immediate refusals and rejections, practically strategically forcing the abandonment of all her filings?
Is there a much larger agenda surrounding this matter that is not visible in plain sight?
What more can we glean from Ahavel Aborishade? HER story. The history of this invention, and how SHE came up with it? Why has she yet to produce her app? What happened to her?
What is her story? What is the real story? What is the truth that needs to be told?
Laurel J. Hess (Davis), Spencer B. Hoyt, Ryan A. LeBlanc, Jennifer K. Raggio, creative adroits or CON ARTISTS?
I will be investigating all these questions and more in upcoming publications.
Stay tuned as I continue my investigations into all parties involved and report my findings.
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READ THIS ORIGINAL POST ON MY BLOG FOR MORE DETAILS & ACCESS.
Interesting. Stranger than fiction for sure.