Internet libel and cyber harassment

[bluemoves]

This story could get quite legnthy, since it dates back more than 5 years. In the interests of brevity, I will keep it short and to the point.

BACKGROUND: For the past 5+ years a man has been targeting myself and approximately 100 others on various hate message boards that he has created. Stalking, harassment, anonymous emails, employing dozens of aliases to publish lies and disgusting attacks on his own forums. Ezboard shut him down a few times, proboards shut him down, and when he finally got his own domain his ISP shut him down. Now he has his own domain with godaddy and they will not shut him down. This man tries to pit his victims against each other, sometimes quite successfully, and is always on the prowl to recruit new members for his cyber harassment campaign--usually finding similar-minded sociopaths who also have a penchant for harassing others. Fastforward...

CURRENT ISSUE: Several of my friends have been targeted by this man's ritualistic abuse, all in an effort to get at me, or them, or both (I can't explain this behavior). 16 months ago, one such friend who was systematically stalked, harassed, and defamed by this man was diagnosed with cancer. As we kept in touch on my own message board, we talked daily and of course several of our mutual friends received updates on her condition, etc. She was a very close friend who I had worked with a real estate agent a few month prior to purchase a home for her (she had been out here a few times looking but didn't make a purchase), as prices were rising quickly and I found the perfect place. She was set to move out here, but became ill. She asked if I could come out to her state to help her move and get her things in order, and take her to get medical tests. I told her I would in October, and for the month of September she had another friend (a mutual friend) come out to help her. Her condition quickly deteriorated. She hired an attorney to draft her will and trust and medical power of attorney papers. However, that attorney did not draft them (she charged a huge fee, however). My friend hand wrote the forms filling in the blanks and then signed the documents but they never got drafted. It was later learned that the attorney's secretary had tried to get my friend to give her 50,000 to pay off her own mortgages, and the attorney herself had sought out my friend's last surviving blood relative, an estranged aunt, and was hired by the aunt to represent her "inheritance", rather than draft the will and trust according to my friend's wishes. After a series of infections, my friend was put on life support. At that point this corrupt attorney obtained emergency guardianship and kicked all of my friend's friends out of the hospital, and kicked the friend that was staying with her out of her home. As my friend began improving and the doctors were going to attempt removing the ventilator, the attorney ordered life support removed immediately, and my friend passed away.

NOW, to the libel/defamation. As we shared many friends online in our forum, we had no choice but to announce her passing on that forum. The malicious stalker who has been after members of my forum for years picked up on the announcement of the death of our friend, and what happens next is the most outrageous example of defamation I have ever seen. He posts to his stalking and harassment site that he phoned my friend's "attorney" (the one that corrupted her estate) and that he was told that myself and the friend that stayed with her the month before she died had attempted to FLEECE the estate, that we were being investigated for credit card fraud, that we were escorted out of the home by the police, that we "pretended friendship" to inherit millions of dollars. I have no idea if the attorney ever told him that--since the truth is the opposite of that story is true. I believe he hacked into my forum and obtained my friend's journal entries regarding the corrupt attorney's behavior and simply flipped the juicy story around to implicate us, and it was absolutely 100% positively done with malicious intent and malice. We have documented 5+ years of ritualistic abuse by this man. There is no escaping him, as he persists offline if he cannot locate you online, and he persists in his online harassment in any event.

Our full names have been posted along with these libelous statements. There are literally hundreds if not thousands of threads on his harassment forum that publish our names along with lies and libel. He believes that we are too poor to sue him, he even laughed and gloated that he could do whatever he wanted because we were unable to sue. He further states his belief that we would never win such a lawsuit anyway, because he claims HE is the victim (?????). Some of his victims have launched back at him, but many have not. I just sit and absorb it in now. I have no idea what he has cooked up his sleeve--he has forged documents and organized false police report filings in the past, and tried to get people fired from their jobs.

Any thoughts?

[seniorjudge]

Q: Any thoughts?

A: You could quit reading what he posts. Or, you could spend thousands of dollars and years of time suing him. But I wouldn't think that would stop him.

[bluemoves]

It has nothing to do with me reading the messages. The messages are posted so that they receive high google rankings. I am the only person in the entire world with my name--it is very unique. One cannot do a search for my name and not see his defamatory, libelous remarks. Friends, old friends, family members, employers, etc. often do searches on people--this is what they have to read about me. That is why we have libel laws in the first place, to prevent people from reading harmful, untrue things about others and judging someone based upon them.

Years of court dates is a given--I would gladly do that. The money is an issue--however some lawyers are now working contingency cases in libel suits if they are particularly strong cases. Why would you discourage suing this monster?

[aaron]

Then check with the companies hosting his content to see if it violates their terms of service and, if so, try to get them to remove it.

Unfortunately, if your name is that unique, it will show up in searches even if it appears only on obscure sites.

[bluemoves]

His harassment board has been shut down 4 times already. However, he has found "godaddy", the cyberstalker's best friend. Godaddy refuses to honor their terms of service. He's violated nearly every policy at least 100 times, and he's been reported by several victims of those violations, to no avail.

[bluemoves]

And of even more concern to me is that they have accessed public court records and published their findings, and found relatives of mine and now post their names on the site as well. So now innocent family members that have never so much as encountered this guy are being smeared, and a search for their names brings up his harassment threads about me. If this isn't considered harassment, libel, and defamation, then I would like to know what does--I mean, I don't see how it could get any worse. I'm not even referring to the false accusations that I am obese, homosexual, living at home, or the disgusting vile attacks and curse words he uses. Those might be considered harassing statements, but to an objective obvservor they are probably just "flame wars". His comments about very specific and very real events in my life, and his "factual statements" which are complete lies are indeed crossing the line in my opinion.

[bluemoves]

So what does one do when hosting companies such as godaddy refuse to honor their own terms of service?

[rmet4nzkx]

My only response is you are free to retain an attorney and seek their advice.