Albert Whitehead: A man at the center of the Sundance fight

Is Albert Whitehead a compulsive critic seeking revenge against Sundance Vacations for an old slight, a man who deserves to be summoned repeatedly to Luzerne County for legal proceedings, have his e-mail records subpoenaed, and pay $12,991 toward Sundance's legal costs to shut him up - or go to jail if he can't?

Or is Whitehead a selfless whistle-blower suffering because he can't afford to counter Sundance's lawyers - a man unfairly in the crosshairs of the Wilkes-Barre lodging-package marketer, which he says uses legal loopholes to lock unwitting customers into costly, long-term contracts?

Those sharply differing views of Whitehead, 73, of Fairmount, emerge from records in a messy dispute that has played out since April 2012 in Luzerne County Common Pleas Court and from statements by the company and Whitehead. He is due in court Monday for a hearing on Sundance's proposal to hold him in contempt for failing to pay the $12,991.

Sundance has declined to discuss the case publicly. But in a statement about consumer complaints, Sundance lawyer Dan Brier alluded to Whitehead's criminal record - most recently for unemployment-benefits fraud in the 1980s - and blamed him for "nearly all of the 'complaints' made against Sundance."

Whitehead was never a Sundance customer, but says he briefly sold its product - lodging packages fulfilled by a partner, Travel Advantage Network - for another marketer during a 20-year career as a salesman after getting out of prison in 1988.

He has acknowledged having used pseudonyms to criticize Sundance and urge attention to consumer complaints, but says he stopped after Sundance sued him in 2012.

Whitehead's legal entanglements with Sundance began in 2005, when he sued it alleging age discrimination after being rejected for a job.

Sundance countersued, accusing Whitehead of defamation for postings at sites such as Timesharebeat.com and Scam.com. In 2007, Whitehead and Sundance agreed to settle both cases in a deal that included a mutual nondisparagement clause, a deal he says he thought he had revoked by fax, as the agreement allowed, a day after signing.

In its 2012 suit, Sundance accused Whitehead of violating that deal by continuing to post criticism under various names. In particular, it accused him of creating Facebook's "Boycott Sundance Vacations" page under the name "John Flannagan," and of using other names, on Facebook and elsewhere, to discourage business with the company.

"It's like playing Whackamole," Sundance attorney Donna Walsh said during a hearing on the 2012 breach-of-contract case, according to a transcript. "Once we catch him at John Flannagan, he becomes Mary Smith. Now we've caught him at Mary Smith, now he's got another theory as to why he's able to get on this page."

Whitehead denies creating the Facebook page, says he deleted his "John Flannagan" account shortly after Sundance sued him, and never posed as a "Mary Smith."

"The only thing I ever misrepresented was my name," Whitehead said. "I never said I was anything I wasn't. I never acted like a disgruntled customer."

Whitehead, who said he suffers from liver cancer and hepatitis and has run out of money to pay lawyers, said he recently offered to pay the company $50 a month out of his Social Security, which he called his only source of income.

He calls Sundance's action a "SLAPP suit" - an acronym for a "strategic lawsuit against public participation," which consumer advocates say is an increasingly common tactic among companies seeking to silence critics.

Still, Whitehead said he does not bear a grudge against Sundance, and suggests the company has targeted him because it can't fight readily against other online critics.

"They're using me as scapegoat trying to get that page down. But I don't have that power."