“They’re Not Gonna Hide for Long”: ZeroDarkTony Warns Civil Suits Against a Named Family and Others

Legal fund: D’Amato did not ask for donations on this stream. About 10 minutes in, a day after Hero Not Zero reported that one account, 86 GOP, supplied nearly half of his chat income, he defended his donors: “if people that have donated to this channel, and this is several people, this isn’t just one person, they want to focus on one person for some reason, and try and suggest that they’ve done something untoward by just donating, that’s just utter bullshit.” He added, “unlike others, I use every penny for what I say I’m gonna use it for.” He did not say what that is, and showed no accounting. D’Amato named a woman he describes as Brooks’s wife, addressing her directly and stating his intent to sue her alongside her husband. He also discussed whether to include a daughter in the same action. He framed all of this as strictly civil and functional, saying at one point, “There’s no emotion in this for me. This is just functional. This is just strictly business.”

“I am going to squeeze that lemon till I get every fucking drop out of it.”

The stream covered three overlapping threads: D’Amato’s account of his restraining order case against Brooks, his stated preparations for additional civil suits, and his comments about anonymous critics he said had posted his address on a forum. Chat was active throughout, driven largely by @driftershelly, who D’Amato acknowledged by name at several points while discussing evidence-gathering, and by @PippieLongstocking21, whom D’Amato credited for a comment about financial disclosures. 

D’Amato stated on stream that he had consulted two paralegals to help prepare filings, that he planned to proceed without an attorney for portions of the cases, and that the suits involve “civil rights acts with $25,000 plus penalties,” with compensatory and punitive damages he said would be tripled once he proves a violation. He did not name the statutes in that passage or say what violence or threat of violence he relies on. 

Hero Not Zero’s Oct. 21 questions asked whether the “$25,000 per person mandated fine” refers to the Ralph Act, which covers violence or threats of violence based on traits like race or sexual orientation, and which statute entitles him to triple damages. He did not answer. He claimed the forum on which his address was posted had received over five million views, and said of the people responsible, “they’re gonna get some back. There’s not gonna be any mercy from me.”

The stream aired on the afternoon of Friday, Oct. 23, the day of his own deadline for critics to “cooperate” with his announced John Doe lawsuit, and the day after the deadline Hero Not Zero set for answers to its 12 written questions. He did not mention the questions or answer any of them. About 40 minutes in, he complained that critics “can’t follow simple instructions when I said, hey, if you have something to tell, if you have something to say, go tell the lawyer or send it to the mod. Or now we have this new email address that someone else controls and anything that goes there will just get forwarded to the lawyer.” 

He did not name the lawyer, the moderator, or the address on stream. The YouTube post Hero Not Zero asked him about named no lawyer and no moderator and gave no contact information. Hero Not Zero’s first question was whether he has an attorney and where legal correspondence should go; the new address, which his moderator Wild Coconuts posted in chat during his overnight stream of Oct. 22 to 23, is the closest he has come to answering it, and he has not said who controls it.

D’Amato characterizes his critics as “cowards that would never, ever fucking dare to say some of the things that they’ve said to me personally,” adding that a face-to-face encounter “would be a different story.” The clip establishes D’Amato’s framing of the anonymous group as people whose identities he expects to uncover, without specifying what the “methodical and focused” handling will involve. In California, a court will not unmask an anonymous speaker until the person seeking the names makes a prima facie showing of an actionable claim (Krinsky v. Doe 6, 2008).

This is the longest clip in the set. D’Amato walks through his claimed litigation strategy in detail, says his critics will end up with “five-year restraining orders on them just like Jared,” describes monitoring the financial disclosure Brooks is required to fill out, and warns that “if we see the slightest deviation, we’re going to challenge it.” He says: “The truth is, is that the judge already said that the amount was reasonable,” and later, “The judge already made a decision.” The court record does not show a decision on the amount. At the Oct. 1 hearing the judge did not rule on his $23,197.40 request, needed Brooks’s income and expense information first, and continued the motion to Oct. 29. He adds that “perjury is really, really difficult to get to a prosecutorial level, but contempt isn’t.” Perjury requires a willful false statement of material fact under oath, and prosecutors decide whether to charge it. He also states that he would not publicly disclose sealed financial records, saying, “I have no interest in, you know, putting any of that shit on blast. It’s just not who I am.”

D’Amato states on stream that Brooks’s wife is a “co-conspirator” because she pays phone, electric, and internet bills used by her husband, and that he has video evidence of her discussing him on her husband’s channel. In California, civil conspiracy is not a standalone claim; it requires an underlying wrong (Applied Equipment Corp. v. Litton Saudi Arabia Ltd., 1994). Paying a household’s bills is not, by itself, a wrong. He says he will decide whether to include the daughter when he is “actually am ready to file,” so no suit has been filed. He closes the segment by saying, “I’m not interested in any illegal shit,” distinguishing his stated intent as civil litigation rather than any other form of retaliation.

D’Amato distinguishes civil from criminal proceedings and references a separate matter involving Scott Hochstetter, known online as DOA, who streams on YouTube at @thelordofthegadflies, stating that district attorneys will handle that track. Hochstetter faces one count of assault with force likely to produce great bodily injury and five counts of criminal threats, all dated Feb. 16, 2024. He has pleaded not guilty; those are allegations, not convictions. Five counts of vandalism of religious property as a hate crime were dismissed Aug. 8, 2025, at the preliminary hearing. The clip shows D’Amato describing multiple parallel legal fronts rather than a single consolidated action.

D’Amato does not specify in this clip what “getting some back” refers to, and the immediate context is civil litigation rather than any described extralegal action. The clip also captures D’Amato noting that his employer’s associates include people connected to local law enforcement, offered as a warning to anyone who might attempt to contact that employer. Taken together, the five clips from the October 23, 2026 stream document D’Amato describing active civil proceedings against named individuals, stating his intent to file additional suits against Brooks’s wife and potentially her daughter, and warning unidentified critics that he expects to uncover their identities.

Sources

• Original YouTube Video
• Full SRT Transcript: for HNZ Supporters
• Full Text Transcript: for HNZ Supporters
• Full Chat Transcript: for HNZ Supporters
• Date: 2026-10-23
• Stream ID: YOUTUBE · wB8JdWHow_Q