“You Should Have Killed Me”: ZeroDarkTony Says He Will Sue and Subpoena Named Critics

He can report conduct to the police, but whether anyone is charged is up to prosecutors. He also says that he “had a long talk with Maggie,” asking her “to maybe… not give out locations.” The next exhibit covers that.

Exhibit B

At the top of the stream, D’Amato said a person he calls Maggie “doxed me a little bit last night,” adding, “She didn’t say where I was, but she said where I’m not.” Here he revisits it and acknowledges he asked her what time it was where she was: “So maybe she didn’t dox me. Maybe I doxed me by proxy.” He then names a specific pizza restaurant in Brentwood as a point of reference for the area where he is staying.

Timestamps: 00:10:51 – 00:12:51 | Watch with a free account

So he puts the disclosure down to his own question, not to Maggie. He adds that the area is “pretty big.”

Exhibit C

D’Amato addresses Cody, HNZ contributor Hero Light Cody, accusing him of posting court records and misrepresenting them, and says, “I am coming for you, all right? In the legal sense, in the legal sense. I’m coming for you, pussy.” He says he will take the filing to the LAPD, and that Brooks, “the respondent,” is “the bridge” who connects the people he plans to sue: “as far as the respondent goes, I’m adding his wife to the lawsuit.”

Timestamps: 00:13:56 – 00:21:07 | Watch with a free account

He says “in the legal sense” twice. The line “You should have killed me” follows “You wanted to try and bury me, motherfuckers?” and is aimed at the whole group he accuses. He says that “with the laws I’m using, I got three years.” He did not name those laws. A defamation claim in California must be filed within one year of publication. He also says, “if you think that dumb fat fuck can get subpoenas out and I can’t, you are sadly mistaken.” His last try at Hero Light Cody through the courts failed: in Willens v. D’Amato (25STRO01863), a judge quashed his lawyer’s 2025 subpoenas to YouTube for records on several critics’ channels, Cody’s among them, and ordered the lawyer to pay $2,000 of the other side’s attorney fees, a payment she put on hold. He says his hospital stay documented what his targets did. He showed no records on stream.

Exhibit D

D’Amato says he intends to pursue “John Doe’s 1 through 20” and describes physical flyers he says were hung in his former neighborhood, which he states caused him to relocate. He tells the target he believes is responsible, “You’re gonna answer that under oath.”

Timestamps: 00:21:49 – 00:26:32 | Watch with a free account

He also says, “I’m not letting my foot off anybody’s neck on this one,” then adds, “Figuratively speaking, of course,” saying he expects viewers to clip it without that. He does not name the person he says will “answer that under oath,” and he offered no evidence tying anyone to the flyers or explaining the “drone comment.”

Exhibit E

D’Amato says Hochstetter will be served at his next criminal hearing and that Chee and Amber “will also be served.” He says the flyers are “a hate crime” and that “what he has now is charges with hate crime enhancements.” Addressing an individual he refers to as “the chocolate ET,” D’Amato says, “If you send someone, send someone you don’t want back,” then immediately states, “that’s a joke. It’s a line from a movie.” Later he says, “You better pray nothing happens to me,” to a person the transcript spells “Cheat.” He named Chee among his targets minutes earlier.

Timestamps: 00:32:57 – 00:44:41 | Watch with a free account

He called the “send someone” line a joke in the same breath. He did not take back or explain “You better pray nothing happens to me.” Hochstetter’s hate-crime counts are gone. Five counts of vandalism of religious property as a hate crime were dismissed at his preliminary hearing on Aug. 8, 2025. What remains is one count of assault with force likely to produce great bodily injury and five counts of criminal threats, none with a hate-crime label. He has pleaded not guilty, and the charges are allegations. His next court date is a pretrial conference on Dec. 1, 2026. Later in the clip, D’Amato says that at “the last fee hearing, the judge said, yes, that amount is reasonable,” and that some of his targets will be “paying me monthly for the rest of your fucking life. Just like the respondent.” The judge in his case against Brooks did not rule on Oct. 1. She said she needed income and expense information, ordered Brooks to file an FL-150 by Oct. 24, and continued the motion to Oct. 29. No fees had been ordered at the time of this stream. On Oct. 29 she granted the motion in part and awarded D’Amato $10,725 of the $23,197.40 he asked for. He also says “my lawyer’s nickname is gonna be Hezbollah.” He named no lawyer, and elsewhere in the stream he says he will do the initial filings himself. He calls a reposted sexual AI image of him “a felony” that will go to the LAPD; he named no report or case.

Exhibit F

D’Amato offers his targets a choice: “Come forward, cooperate, or don’t.” He outlines what he says he will seek, “$25,000, each one of you,” plus damages he says are tripled under a law he does not name, and states he intends to “get every possible charge.” He calls the five-year restraining order he holds against Brooks “a very solid indicator of what’s gonna happen to you.” After his moderator Wild Coconuts writes in chat, “He tried to tell me last night that I was the one making threats,” D’Amato answers, “Oh, you’re the one making threats? Okay, good. You’re gonna go to jail. How about that, Johnny?”

Timestamps: 00:46:54 – 00:54:31 | Watch with a free account

He then answers critics he imagines accusing him: “Oh, he’s making threats. I’m not making any threats. This is civil court. This is civil. If you think it’s a threat, then you did something wrong.” The next evening, Oct. 21, HNZ emailed D’Amato, and posted publicly, written questions about the lawsuit he describes here. They asked whether the $25,000 “mandated fine” refers to the Ralph Act, which covers violence or threats of violence based on traits like race or sexual orientation, and if so what violence or threat he means; what statute entitles him to triple damages; and what “cooperate” means. As of HNZ’s review of his streams, he has answered none of the questions.

Exhibit G

D’Amato tells his audience that targets who are not named defendants will be called as hostile witnesses, stating, “the ones that aren’t on the lawsuit, will I bring them in as hostile witnesses? You’re goddamn right I will.” He also says he plans to subpoena watch-time records to show courts how often targets viewed his streams.

Timestamps: 00:55:16 – 00:59:53 | Watch with a free account

He says that once targets are named in public court records, “All they’re gonna have to do is check the records,” which he says is not doxxing. He tells Johnny that “all the times you posted my old address” put him “in such deep shit,” without saying where or when those posts appeared. In the same clip he describes breaking sticks “over your fucking knee” to fit a fireplace, then says, “And there’s no violence here.”

Exhibit H

D’Amato states his intent to subpoena accounts across Twitter, Reddit, and Discord, saying, “We’re gonna subpoena every word from your Twitter, from Reddit, from Discord.” He says a person he calls Clearwater is “going on this” too. Right after saying he is glad “Scott’s working for me,” he adds, “And I don’t know if we’re going to win the appeal, but if we do, oh boy.”

Timestamps: 01:00:48 – 01:04:13 | Watch with a free account

D’Amato says he will subpoena Clearwater’s account for “every time he called me a PDF, every time he called me an agent of Scientology,” and mentions “that little video with my mom.” The clip ends as he turns to Darren: “hey, Darren, shitbag.” He did not say which appeal he meant. The appeal HNZ has reported is his challenge to the trial court’s denial of his request for attorney fees from Hochstetter; no fees have been awarded. Subpoenas to unmask anonymous accounts are not automatic. In California, a plaintiff must first make a prima facie showing of an actionable claim (Krinsky v. Doe 6, 2008).

Exhibit I

Near the end of the stream, D’Amato sets a concrete timeline, stating, “this will be filed and some of it will be served in the next 30 days.” He names Darren explicitly as a future defendant and identifies up to 20 account subpoena targets as “John Doe’s 1 through 20.”

Timestamps: 01:06:21 – 01:09:41 | Watch with a free account

This clip includes the legal fund ask: “make sure you’re all are dropping a couple dollars into the legal fund.” Since late September he has asked viewers to give to the fund through Cash App and Venmo, with no public accounting. On Oct. 1 he said a firm he did not name wanted $5,500 to write up and serve a suit; on Oct. 2 he put the fund at “almost $1,000.” He says Darren’s chat “amplified the message of the Chomo shit.” “Chomo” is slang for child molester. The clip opens on Hochstetter’s lawsuit: “him adding me to any kind of lawsuit that has large institutions and trying to connect me to those institutions, that shit’s gonna get thrown out.” On his next stream that evening, he said of the same suit, “But from what I understand, I’m not sure if it’s true. I haven’t looked at any of this shit.” In all, D’Amato named or clearly identified at least eight people as targets of planned suits, a police report or subpoenas, and said the first papers would be served within 30 days. Related: "They Wanted to Start It, I’m Gonna Finish It": ZeroDarkTony Names Targets in Civil Lawsuit Threats, from his other stream that evening.

Sources

• Original YouTube Video
• Full SRT Transcript: for HNZ Supporters
• Full Text Transcript: for HNZ Supporters
• Full Chat Transcript: for HNZ Supporters
• Date: 2026-10-20
• Stream ID: YOUTUBE · njg9xlH16PQ