This is Part II of a two-part investigation, released together. Part I, “Independent, Nonpartisan, and Fake,” covers the two secret guides.
Quick: name the non-shady reasons people change their names. Marriage, obviously. Testifying against the mob? Totally legit. Being the kid of Hitler, Stalin, or Mao? Sure, I wouldn’t want that name either. But what if you’re a software guy in the suburbs of Los Angeles? Why would you change your name? Only Brett Haddock can answer that. Or should I say Brett Haddoak?
Brett Haddock slinked onto the political scene in 2016, and his narcissistic lizard brain decided he would, of course, be a perfect fit for Santa Clarita City Council. So he threw his bowtie in the ring. Voters were less convinced. He finished with a microscopic 3.1 percent.
Let’s sit with the bowtie for a second, because it tells you something. Nobody accidentally wears a bowtie. It’s a decision. It’s a guy who looked in the mirror, knew charisma wasn’t going to walk through the door on its own, and decided to dress up as Approachable. So he went full 2004 Tucker Carlson. And we all know how that ended for Tucker: Jon Stewart wrecked him on Crossfire, and the bowtie went in a drawer. What’s next, a joy buzzer and a flower that squirts water? “Well, excuuuse me! I’m a wild and crazy guy!” Steve Martin pulled off the costume because he was in on the joke. Brett isn’t.
Santa Clarita has seen a name-changing council candidate before. Remember Johnny Pride? Back in 2010, a fame-seeking guy legally rebranded himself and ran for council. Sword up, full Conan the Barbarian. I’m not even exaggerating, and I wish I could find the pictures. His claim to fame was ABC’s The Conveyor Belt of Love, where he rolled out in a black Speedo holding a tiny dog. Stuntman, part owner of a tanning salon, City Council candidate. Despite his legal troubles during the campaign, he tried to keep it together, then vanished. At least Johnny was honest about the costume.
Haddock pretended to be fair-minded. That fell apart fast. I know firsthand, because I was connected with Cameron Smyth’s 2016 campaign. When Cam’s first videos said he was the only candidate born in Santa Clarita, Baby Carlson was ready to fight. He went on Twitter (X, or whatever we’re calling it now) and accused Cam of lying, because he was born here too. Because that matters. Being born in a place is, after all, a person’s greatest accomplishment. “I was going to vote for you, but you weren’t born at Henry Mayo.” I clapped back, being the cheeky fellow I am, that Cam should have said “only serious candidate.” Sure, we could have done a little more homework. Or Haddock could have shrugged it off and talked about the issues. Instead, he went on a literal 24-hour rant targeting Smyth’s staff. Take a breath, dude.
It got bad enough that Mike Devlin weighed in publicly, saying something to the effect of: you’d think a guy who rocks a bowtie would have a better sense of humor. Pretty much summed it up. Figuring things get lost online, I tried talking to Brett in person at a COC debate, one he wasn’t invited to speak at but showed up to anyway. Nope. He was a dick in person too. I’ve never had anyone be so rude with so little interaction. I knew then this dude was wound tight. I just didn’t know how tight.
You don’t have to take my word for it. You can take the court’s. Several times over.
Takes one to know one
In March 2017, Haddock published a blog post called “Hallmarks of a Charlatan.” It’s still up on his site today, now under the name Haddoak. In it, he explains that he has a gift:
“The amusing fact, for me at least, is that I seldom seek these people out. Somehow, they find me; as though I’m a lightning-rod for con-artists.”
A month later came “Standing up to bullies,” where he explains it’s a “moral obligation” to drag bullies “into the light.” Also still up.
Hold onto that charlatan post. Brett Haddock wrote the field guide, and then he spent the next nine years following it like a recipe.
The last guy he called a charlatan
In January 2017, Haddock and Sean Weber both applied for the City Council seat Dante Acosta left behind. Neither got it. The council appointed Bill Miranda.
Most people who lose an appointment go home. Four months later, the seat was long gone and these two were still going at each other. In May, Haddock published “Sean Weber: Charlatan, Bully, and Criminal.” It opened with a brag: “As my friends and family can attest, I’ve made something of a second career helping to expose frauds and bullies.”
According to the Court of Appeal, the post included a photo of Weber’s license plate, plus his parents’ address and phone number. The parents started getting crank calls. On Twitter, Haddock was posting about a “target.” One example the court quoted: “Target made their profile private. Good thing I already grabbed a copy of everything.”
Expose away. But Weber’s parents weren’t running for anything. Dragging a rival’s mom and dad into it is a dirtbag move by any standard of common decency. The courts would agree.
California has a name for posting someone’s personal information online so strangers can do the harassing for you. Penal Code 653.2 makes it a misdemeanor to electronically post a person’s identifying information with intent to put them in fear for their safety and to provoke harassment by a third party. A criminal case means a prosecutor has to prove that intent beyond a reasonable doubt, which is a high bar. A lawsuit doesn’t. Since 2025, Civil Code 1708.89 lets doxing victims sue directly for statutory damages of $1,500 to $30,000, plus punitive damages and attorney’s fees. Haddock was never charged under either one, and the civil law didn’t exist yet when he hit publish. Today’s doxers don’t get that luxury.
So a word to the serial doxers in this valley: you may never see a courtroom on the criminal side. The civil side is a different story, and it pays the other guy’s lawyer. If you’ve got a house, a business, or a paycheck worth going after, I’d think twice before your next harassing post. The people on the other end of those posts have long memories, and some of them have lawyers.
Weber went to court. A commissioner granted him and his family a two-year civil harassment restraining order: no contact, and stay 100 yards away from Weber, his family, his home, his work, his car, and his parents’ house. Haddock was ordered to pay $3,000 in attorney’s fees. In court, Haddock described himself this way: “I am adamantly a pain in the ass.”
To be fair to him, the commissioner called it “an unusual case” and said most of what he did didn’t quite reach the standard on its own. She granted the order anyway, looking at the whole record. Haddock argued it was all protected speech about a political rival, and said he had pulled the addresses and phone numbers after the fact. He had defenders, too. At the time, Techdirt’s Mike Masnick, who disclosed he’d interacted with Haddock online, wrote that the whole thing appeared to be “a clear attempt to stifle free speech through legal process.”
In June 2018, about a year into the restraining order, with his appeal still pending, Haddock wrote an open letter in the Signal inviting every council candidate to dinner, to prove “that politics can be civil.” A guy under a restraining order for posting a rival’s parents’ phone number, lecturing the field on civility. Where have we heard that one before?
His appeal had brought heavy artillery: First Amendment lawyer Ken White, with the Electronic Frontier Foundation filing a brief on his side. He lost anyway. In October 2018, the Court of Appeal upheld the order, finding Haddock “engaged in a course of private harassing conduct toward Weber and his family,” and that his actions “went beyond public criticism and strayed into private harassment of not only Weber but his family members, placing them in fear for their safety.”
There’s a lesson here for anyone in this valley who thinks posting someone’s private information or encouraging people to harass them counts as “accountability.” The First Amendment protects criticism. It doesn’t protect a course of conduct. Haddock had one of the best First Amendment lawyers in the country and the EFF in his corner, and he still lost, because he didn’t know where that line was, and he crossed it with someone who wasn’t going to shrug it off.
Haddock’s response to the Signal: “This is outrageous and it’s a shame that the justice system has been manipulated in this way. The next step is the Supreme Court.” He said he’d “fight this to the very end.”
The very end came about two months later. The appeal closed on December 20, 2018. Court records show no petition to the California Supreme Court.
Oh, and at the time of that ruling? Both men were running for City Council. Again. The order already had a carve-out for that: 100 yards everywhere else, but at any public gathering, Haddock only had to keep 20 yards from Weber. Two candidates on the same ballot, working the same forums, one of them under orders to keep his distance from the other. Campaign season must have been fun. Neither won. Haddock finished with 6.4 percent, Weber with 2.8.
I’m not here to defend Sean Weber. I’ve had my own run-ins with him, and he’s not my favorite person either. But a court looked at what Haddock did to Weber’s family and ruled against him, and the Court of Appeal backed it up. This isn’t about Weber. It’s about the guy asking for your vote.
Five and a half years
Here’s the part nobody seems to remember. That two-year order didn’t end after two years.
The trial court docket tells the rest. In May 2019, the court ordered Haddock to cover Weber’s fees and costs from the appeal. That September, a judge renewed the restraining order. In October 2021, another judge renewed it again, after hearing evidence from both sides. That’s four and a half years after the blog post, and a court still decided Weber and his family needed it.
Then comes summer 2022.
On June 2, 2022, with that renewed order still in force, Brett Taylor Haddock filed a petition to become Brett Taylor Haddoak. He got married that same summer, and marriage is the first reason on my list. Fair enough. But the man the restraining order protected saw it differently. On August 2, Sean Weber filed an objection, telling the court the name change was “an attempt to avoid lawful service of process, avoid current court orders, and avoid his current debt obligations.”
The judge granted the name change anyway on August 5, 2022.
That same day, the newly minted Brett Haddoak filed a request to terminate the restraining order.
Weber fought it, and asked for a third renewal. In October 2022, Weber was also back in court on the money, filing a lien and asking the court to order Haddock to appear for a judgment debtor examination. On October 26, 2022, a judge declined to renew the order a third time, and it ended. Five and a half years after it started.
The name change cleaned up more than a court caption. His old blog posts, written as Brett Haddock, now carry the byline Brett Haddoak. His 2016 thank-you note to voters still says “Brett Haddock” at the bottom, under a byline that says Haddoak. The charlatan post and the bullies post survived the move. The Weber posts didn’t. If you want to know what was in them, you don’t need the originals. The Court of Appeal described them for you.
And his 2026 campaign announcement? It doesn’t mention he ran for this council twice before. It doesn’t mention the old name. The Signal ran his campaign’s press release as written, under a note that it “has not been vetted by The Signal news room.”
Remember the bowtie? A costume for a guy trying to look approachable. The new name works the same way. New spelling, new byline on the old posts, new domains, and a campaign announcement that starts his story fresh in 2026. Change the costume all you want. Character and integrity don’t come with a name change form. There isn’t a bowtie big enough to hide all of this. The Signal knows all of this, and apparently doesn’t think it’s relevant to voters. More on that later.
That’s what Haddock did with no power at all: a blog, a Twitter account, and a grudge. A court spent five and a half years keeping him away from one man’s family. Now imagine him with a vote. Your business license, your zoning appeal, your neighborhood’s project, sitting in front of a guy who once called his rival a “target.” Feel lucky?
About the local paper
The Signal is usually a solid arbiter of truth in this valley. They were given the core of this nearly two months ago and passed. They also covered the restraining order back in 2018, so they know exactly who Brett Haddock is. And this isn’t a nickname or a typo. He legally changed it. A voter who looks up the name on the ballot isn’t looking up the name in the 2018 court stories. Imagine Jason Gibbs or Denise Lite spent five years under a restraining order, then showed up on the ballot as Jason Gabbs or Denise Light. That’s front-page news by lunch. It takes a certain kind of arrogance to run for the same council, in the same town, in front of the same paper that covered your case. Either he got lucky, or he figured nobody would connect the dots. So far, he’s been right. Voters deserved to hear it from the Signal first. Now they’re hearing it here. And there isn’t a bowtie in Santa Clarita big enough to hide Brett Haddoak’s problems.
If any fact in this piece is wrong, show me the receipt and I’ll correct it at the top. That’s more than his guides offer.
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Missed Part I? Independent, Nonpartisan, and Fake, the two secret voter guides.