Forgiving the One Who Deserves Forgiveness

This article, from a blog about malignant narcissism is so important and must read for everyone.

Soooo many supposed trauma counselors tell cyberpathy victims to "forgive the cyberpath." How invalidating! That's just more abuse, frankly.

The other piece of stupid advice from clueless therapists is to treat the online relationship with a cyberpath like any real-life affair. They tell you to "immediately cut them off." Whoops!! Who does that help? NOT YOU!! Nope. Because you need some explanation, closure and at the very least - VALIDATION (since it is rare to ever get the first two).

This makes it far far too easy for the cyberpath to block you, smear you, avoid you, delete you from their contacts - just go on their merry way. Because you were just words on a screen.

"Forgive and forget" - NOT the cyberpath, but yourself. You can't be friends - but you deserve to be told the truth. (be CAREFUL you don't get reeled in again!!) You deserve the cyberpath to admit whatever the payoff was for them - no matter how sick.

And to admit what they did without blaming you or saying you were part of the problem. It was them. ALL THEM.

Truth time for predators!
(but don't hold your breath that you will EVER get it - however you do DESERVE it)


You did NOTHING wrong. NOTHING. No matter what your counselors, friends, families, clergy, the predator themselves or society says?
You are not a stalker.
You were not stupid or naive.
It did not "Take Two to Tango."
You did not "know what you were getting into"
You did not you go in "with [your] eyes wide open." That's baloney.

Obsession with getting justice and validation for yourself isn't revenge - its self-preservation.

You didn't "ask for it" and you can't and shouldn't just "forget it and get over it. " You are not NOTHING - your feelings are not NOTHING.

EMOTIONAL RAPE IS A STATIC EVENT.

IT IS FROZEN IN YOUR PSYCHE.

This isn't the check-out at the grocery. This is your MIND, your HEART & your SOUL that's been raped!

That other stuff is bull that people tell themselves because the truth is too scary. Pathologicals seem like everyone else. Cyberpaths are not easy to spot. Anyone, we repeat - ANYONE is a potential victim.

Your mind was folded & spindled by a master.

Move on with your life, but never stop feeling that you deserve an explanation - even when it doesn't come. You can't forgive the unforgiveable. The ONLY one who needs forgiveness is you.

Not them. - Fighter
~~~~~~~~~~~
The most important thing to keep in mind is that your relationship with yourself is the most important relationship you have.

The same things can damage it that damage your other human relations. The deal-breaker is BETRAYAL.

Have you ever felt betrayed? If so, then you know that it is the blackest feeling a human being can have. It is devastating. It is what makes people want to just turn their face to the wall and die.

Because it shows you what you and your suffering mean (are worth) to your betrayer = nothing.

Betrayal severs any human relationship. It puts the betrayed through Hell.

Just think what this means in terms of your relationship with yourself. If you betray yourself to abuse, that betrayal severs your relationship with yourself.

How can this be? Easily. We are composite beings. We are a combination of true inner self and ego. The ego views us as others do. It's that little voice in the head that takes the viewpoint of bystanders and berates you IN THE SECOND PERSON, by saying such things as, "Why can't you hit a stupid backhand in? You are pathetic! Here you are, choking again in a big match!"

That's you (if you're a tennis player having a bad tennis day) talking to you. But why aren't you saying, "Why can't I hit a stupid backhand in? I am pathetic! Here I am, choking again in a big match!"

Answer: You address yourself as "you" instead of "I" to distance yourself from yourself. Because you don't like yourself at the moment and are disowning yourself, relating to yourself as though talking to a different person.

See what's happening to your relationship with yourself? You're not on your side, are you?

This happens to everyone, and it should serve as a strong warning of how easily our composite personality can breakdown, split.

Don't go there. Never, never, never betray yourself to bad treatment. You sin against yourself when you do, and the act WILL destroy your relationship with yourself.

Unfortunately, if you are the victim of a narcissist, it is safe to say that you have already done so.

THIS is what threatens the victim's mental health. You have allowed yourself to be abused. You see that for what it is - bending over for it, laying down for it. No matter how blessed people say that is, you know it's not. You know it is abject. You are profoundly ashamed of doing that.

You hate yourself for it, no matter how hard you work to repress awareness of that to live in denial of it. So, you have committed an offense against yourself (your human dignity). You can never be friends with yourself until you make peace with yourself.

Repair that relationship with yourself. The fruit of forgiveness is reconciliation (ask any theologian).

1. Admit that you have allowed the narcissist to abuse you.

2. Admit that it was wrong to do so, though be fair with yourself and consider the reasons why you were driven to do so.

3. Be sorry that you betrayed yourself to abuse.

4. Make whatever amends are possible and appropriate.

5. Most important - repent = promise to never betray yourself again.

You may recognize those as the 5 formal steps of repentance. They make you forgivable. They allow reconciliation to take place.
Indeed, how can you be reconciled with any offender who doesn't at least stop offending and give you some assurance that he won't keep right on doing it? It is absurd to to think that you can.

And just because it's 3AM and he is sound asleep, unable to offend at the moment, doesn't mean that a state of war doesn't presently exist bewteen you. What he did yesterday counts. What he has always done and never promised to stop doing COUNTS.

"Forgive and forget" is a line penned in Hell, not Heaven.

It is absurd to think you can have any but a hostile relationship with someone offending you in any way, especially when they have refused to stop it.

Hey, if the offender stops doing it, you can be friends again. But ONLY if he stops doing it. You don't have to be friendly to people attacking you or stealing from you in any way. It's called the human right to self-preservation, self-defense. It's a Law of Nature. The very idea that you should like and be nice to someone doing things hostile to you is bizarre and absurd.

To the contrary: You build walls between yourself and people like that.

You answer their attacks to make their attacks cost them dearly, so as to deter future aggression that you might live in peace instead of under constant attack by them. This is just common sense.

And it holds just as true in your relationship with yourself as in your relationship with others. Simply say, "I betrayed myself to abuse in the past, but I will never do so again, so I am no longer a doormat to be ashamed of."

Be on your side.

Take those 5 steps to repair your relationship with yourself - especially the last one in which you establish a firm purpose of amendment to never betray yourself to abuse again.

Now you are forgivable. So, forgive yourself. Embrace yourself.

YOU are the one who deserves and needs your forgiveness.

And chances are that you are the only one who deserves and wants it.

ORIGINAL: Forgiving the One Who Deserves Forgiveness

Online Novel Gets Jail for Stalker/ Writer

A stalker wrote a blog about raping and murdering a woman he had been harassing in real life for two years.

Greg Downing detailed the imagined attack on children's author Katharine Quarmby in an online novel.

He bombarded Ms Quarmby with phone calls and emails since they met through an online dating site in 2008.

Yesterday the 40-year-old was jailed for six months for putting a person in fear of violence after he admitted what a judge described as a “campaign of harassment.”

Blackfriars Crown Court, in London, was told Ms Quarmby stumbled upon the blog after Downing, of Beacon Road, Crowborough, was convicted three times of stalking her.

She typed her name into the internet search engine Google and found a 29-page piece titled A Novel: Katharine Quarmby, About a Man Stalking the Writer, Burgling her Home, Raping and Finally Murdering Her.

original article here

Stalking the Car Next to You

by Richard Read

So there you are, puttering along, minding your own business, when some hottie rolls up beside you, gives a long, lingering glance, then zips down the road. Finding that gal or guy used to mean posting a "Missed Connections" ad in your local paper, which seemed sad and desperate and potentially embarrassing. Now there's a much faster way of getting in touch by sending a message directly to his/her license plate via Bump.com.

The concept is pretty simple: visit Bump.com, enter your license plate and contact info, and then, as the video says, "prepare to bump and be bumped". (Har.) Bump.com is essentially another social network, just like the Weeels app we mentioned yesterday. (Which was also a great way to meet strangers. Hmm. We smell a theme.) Bump, however, has the added advantage of linking with Facebook and Twitter, meaning that when someone "bumps" you, you'll get a message on those networks instead of having to log directly into Bump.com.

But lest we give the wrong impression, Bump.com isn't just about stalking cuties during your commute or invading other people's privacy. There are also practical, less creepy applications, like telling someone that his car alarm is going off, letting him know he's left his headlights on, or reaming him for leaving his dog in the car -- one of our biggest pet peeves (no pun intended). Businesses stand to benefit, too: drive-through pharmacies, for example, could install scanners to read your license plate, find your file, and have your prescription ready to go by the time you hit the window. There's a host of those sorts of videos and instructional clips on the site's "How To" page.

The Bigger Picture

Bump.com pushes two rapidly growing trends further toward the mainstream: geolocation and in-car connectivity. Every other mobile app makes use of the first; like it or not, geolocation is already allowing people and businesses to track us in real time. As for connectivity: while Bump.com isn't the same as having a wifi router embedded in your dashboard, it's one more brick knocked from the wall that used to separate drivers from the web. Between services like this and in-car apps and a full range of telematics systems, cars are no longer the internet-free safe rooms they once were.

original article here

Another Cyberpath Cons Women Out of Money

(U.K.) Good-looking, charming and apparently a successful professional, David Checkley seemed perfect to the women he courted on dating websites.

In reality, however, the 52-year-old was a serial fraudster who cheated his victims out of half a million pounds.

One lent him £10,000 after he claimed to need money for a vital operation to cure his fictional Parkinson's disease.

Others gave him cash for invented business dealings as he posed variously as an architect, property developer, fighter pilot and Vietnam War veteran. One woman ended up losing her house.

He spent the money on Mercedes cars, Harley Davidson motorbikes and Rolex watches.

Justice finally caught up with Checkley, described in court as 'a man with a golden tongue' yesterday when he was jailed for six years and ten months.

Police believe he managed to swindle more than 30 victims out of at least £500,000 but the Crown settled on 13 specimen charges of fraud totalling £163,000.

Some of his victims - who had lost between £2,000 and £50,000 each - were in court as he was jailed.

Judge Mark Horton, sentencing at Bristol Crown Court, said: 'Over 20 years you targeted and preyed upon vulnerable and often lonely women.' (call him what he is: a SOCIOPATH!)

Grenada-born Checkley, who emigrated to America with his family when he was three before they moved to London when he was 11, was warned by the judge he faced deportation upon release.

Don Tait, prosecuting, had earlier said: 'It is the Crown's case that this defendant was a consummate fraudster - a man with a golden tongue.'

Checkley met women on the Dating Direct and Match Affinity websites before convincing them he was a businessman with the chance to make high-stakes investments.

He even proposed marriage in an effort to get women - some of whom he forced to re-mortgage their homes - to give him money.

Among his victims was Sharon Shearer, who gave him £30,000. She ended up losing her house.

Another, Linda Miller, handed over £10,000 after Checkley told her he had Parkinson's and needed the cash for an operation after meeting 'fellow sufferer' Michael J Fox.

Deborah Bacaglieri passed over power of attorney and lost £27,000.

Susan Baio, who Checkley defrauded out of £3,155, said after the hearing: 'I'm delighted with the verdict. Hopefully he will never come near me or my family again.'

Checkley's daughter Amy said she was 'disgusted' with her father, adding: 'I hope he's deported.'

* In 2002 Checkley was jailed for GBH and false imprisonment after luring Mark Levy, a presenter on Channel 4's Big Breakfast, to a fake Rolex deal where he was murdered. Two other men convicted of the attack were later cleared.

original article here

E-Harmony Date Ends up in Assault Charges

(even MORE reasons to STAY OFF online dating sites! They are packed with predators. - EOPC)

A Virginia (USA) man has been charged with sexually assaulting a woman he met on an online dating site, the Loudoun County Sheriff's Office says.

John Swann Evans, 34, is charged with abduction with intent to defile and forcible sodomy.

Police say Evans met a 37-year-old Loudoun County woman on the eHarmony online dating site in June.

In July, the two met at Evans' home, where he held her against her will and sexually assaulted her, police say.

Evans is currently being held without bond at the Loudoun County Adult Detention Center.

Investigators believe there may be other victims who have not come forward.

If you are a victim or know of someone who may be a victim, contact Investigator B. Ochsman of the Loudoun County Sheriff's Office Criminal Investigations Division at 703-777-0475.

original article here

major hat tip to OneofSeven

Match.com Grifter to be Charged with Grand Larceny

(yet more reasons to NOT USE Online Dating EVER. Sound familiar members? - EOPC)

By ANDREA PEYSER

An East Village, NYC Romeo who passed himself off as a globetrotting NFL exec is accused of ripping off a beautiful, love-struck divorcee to the tune of a quarter-million dollars.

As he allegedly fleeced her and at least one other woman while posing as an accomplished 40-year-old winner, accused con man John Egan was, in reality, a fat, prematurely gray, 32-year-old sports nut and professional loser who lived with his parents on Avenue C, compulsively trolling the Web.

Now, Egan is the subject of a Manhattan District Attorney's Office investigation. The DA plans to seat a grand jury early next month on grand-larceny charges, said a law-enforcement source.

For beautiful Thea Miller, it may be too late. The San Francisco divorcee claims she was financially ruined and emotionally devastated by the beguiling grifter she met online.

"I was naive," Thea admitted.

Over a period of months starting in 2007, Egan is accused of running up Miller's credit-card bill to nearly $250,000, spending tens of thousands on sports tickets, including Mets-vs.-Yankees ducats from Razorgator.com.

He also allegedly bought up more than $80,000 in sports memorabilia, including baseballs, bats and gloves signed by Derek Jeter, a $1,799.99 Michael Jordan Team USA jersey, and a $1,149.99 Tiger Woods photo from the 1997 Masters Tournament, from Steiner Sports.

That's not to mention two diamond rings and a pair of sapphire earrings from Tiffany's, cases of wine and pricey meals.

All of the items were shipped to his parents' address -- with him often paying an extra $25 for rush shipment.

Yet, bizarrely, Miller and Egan never met in the flesh.

For two years, Egan sent e-mails and text messages -- but no photos -- to Miller, sometimes also calling her 10 times a day. He promised to take her to Giants football games and charity events. Each time, he'd abruptly cancel their date, claiming his mother was sick or he had a business emergency.

"He charmed me," said Miller, now 52, who sells high-end real estate. "He said he loved his mother, grew up in a big Catholic family. He was very sweet. I figured I'd meet him when I'd meet him. I wasn't in a hurry.

"I was falling in love."

Now, Miller is paying for it. She has had to sell her house and pull her teenage son from private school to make ends meet. She peddled some valuable antiques and moved into an apartment, struggling to pay off the massive debt she incurred, allegedly thanks to Egan.

Her lawyer, Michael Galluzzi, this year filed a civil lawsuit against Egan in Manhattan Supreme Court. When the defendant failed to show up for his court date, Miller was granted a default judgment of $300,000, plus another $300,000 for future losses. The money remains uncollected.

It all started, innocently enough, with an online ad.

Miller's girlfriends, wanting to help her out after she became single again, put together a profile, then posted it on match.com.

Soon, she was contacted via e-mail by the man she thought she'd been waiting for.

Egan told Miller he was 40, lived in Manhattan and traveled extensively for his job in game-day operations with the NFL. He said he liked older women.

After a while, Egan told Miller he had a problem with his credit card. Saying he was determined to buy a birthday dinner for his mom, Pauline, he allegedly asked Miller for her American Express card number. She gave it to him, but then he called again, allegedly saying some places don't take AmEx; could he have another card?

Trustingly, stupidly, she gave Egan her card numbers, she said. He promised to repay her.

When she got the bills, Miller was floored.

She demanded that Egan repay her, but he just strung her along for months, she said. Via Federal Express, he sent $10,000 in checks, which allegedly bounced. He allegedly gave Tiffany's and Steiner Sports bank-account numbers, which were bogus.

Finally, Miller threatened to call authorities. She said he threatened her back.

"I know where you live," she said he texted. "I know where your snotty-brat kid lives."

"I was devastated," Miller said. "I cried for weeks."

Last week, a man who was identified by Egan's father and a pal as John Egan was outside his parents' Avenue C apartment, driving a BMW registered to his dad, Patrick. The man gave his name as "James."

One pal said Egan got married three or four years ago.

This was a surprise to Yolanda Castaneda, 41, also from San Francisco.

She said she met Egan on match.com, where he claimed to be an agent for the Yankees and Jets, but never met him. He did send her photos -- although they were from 15 years ago, when he was much slimmer and minus the gray hair.

But Castaneda was luckier than Miller.

She quickly got suspicious when she saw Egan was on match.com day and night, and cut him off sooner.

Castaneda won a default 2007 small-claims-court judgment of $6,065 against Egan, after she shipped him wine that he said was for his parents' anniversary party.

Egan did not return cellphone messages. His parents refused comment.

Match.com did not respond to a message.

original article here

'Very Bad Men' Re-Airing

Predators. Swindlers. Bigamists Masters of Fraud. The men who prey on friends and complete strangers alike.

Very Bad Men is a seven-part, true crime series that exposes some of the most notorious cons on record.

Very Bad Men, first shown in Canada on Global TV and filmed by Make Believe Media begins airing in the US today on cable's We TV each Friday evening, with repeats early Saturday morning.

For more information and dates and times, check your local cable listings for the INVESTIGATION DISCOVERY channel.

Meet the men who took what they wanted at any cost:

• The Don Juan of Con--bigamist William Michael Barber,
• The Sweetheart Swindler,
• The Man Who Married Too Much--bigamist Ed Hicks,
• The Messiah of Death, etc.

Human evil has many faces. Very Bad Men travels the main streets and back alleys of North America - from Tampa Bay, Florida to Vancouver, BC - tracing paths of destruction.
These men and their crimes fall across the spectrum - fraud, bigamy, larceny, crimes of passion, and murder.

Their methods, the tricks of their trade and the horrendous impact on their victims' lives - it's detailed in every episode - leaving little doubt that these are definitely some Very Bad Men.

Our first Predator: ED HICKS (seen above) - will be profiled! Be sure to tune in.

The schedule is:

• Wednesday, 9/15/10 at 10:30 PM
• Thursday, 9/16/10 at 1:30 AM
• Saturday, 9/18/10 at 4:30 PM

All times are EST.

Murdered After Finding Husband's Cheating on Facebook

By Liz Hull

A man strangled his new bride after she discovered he was having an affair, a court has heard.

Michael Roberts, 27, is then said to have concocted an elaborate charade to make it appear that Vicky, 25, his wife of five months, was still alive.

He sent text messages from her phone to her concerned family and friends, saying she had left him for another man.

Roberts even had a tearful dinner with her parents while her dead body lay in their two-bedroom apartment, it is alleged.

Police were called in to investigate, only for him to escape from under their noses. He slipped away when an officer began searching the garage in which he had dumped his wife's body in a duvet.

Roberts evaded capture for four days - staying in hotels under a false name - but then was spotted by a friend who alerted police.

Under questioning, he admitted killing Mrs Roberts, an accounts manager for a chemical company, but denied murder.

He claimed he had accidentally strangled her when a sex game went wrong.

Yesterday Roberts, who was described as devious and clever, went on trial for his wife's murder at Liverpool Crown Court.

David Steer, QC, prosecuting, told the jury that although Roberts and his wife, who had been together for less than three years, appeared to be the perfect couple the reality was different.

Roberts had cheated on his wife with two women before and after their wedding, in June last year and told friends he wanted a divorce.

He had a 13-month affair with Kerrie Hall, an administration boss at Phones4U, for whom Roberts was an assistant store manager.

She told police that Roberts liked rough sex and had twice tried to throttle her during intercourse, claiming it would make it more enjoyable.

Roberts had a second lover in Karen Wilson, who he met two months before his marriage and while still seeing Miss hall.

A month before she died - on November 29 last year - Mrs Roberts confronted her husband after becoming suspicious about his text messages and entries on Facebook.

He promised to be faithful but instead continued the relationship with Miss Wilson, telling her he had ended his marriage and moved in with his parents.

Phone records obtained by police, the court heard, revealed that the pair contacted each other more than 5,000 times.

On the night of Mrs Roberts's death the couple had dinner before returning to their £125,000 flat in Runcorn, Cheshire.

Roberts claimed they had sex, during which his wife asked him to tie the cord of a bath robe around her neck. He told police she went limp, fell on to her side and died.

Instead of dialing 999, Roberts, the court heard, embarked on an elaborate cover-up.

'What happened to Vicky was no accident during intercourse but a deliberate and determined strangulation with a ligature,' Mr Steer said.

'Because on previous occasions he had behaved in the way described by Kerrie Hall, he has decided to use that as part of his story ... and to pretend this was all a terrible accident.'

Within minutes of his wife's death Roberts called Miss Wilson and acted as if nothing had happened.

The couple spent the following day shopping and had sex in a hotel in Bangor, north Wales.

Roberts then started using his wife's phone to send texts to himself, her friends and parents, claiming she had walked out. he had dinner with his in-laws and joked with work colleagues that he couldn't have killed his wife because his car boot was too small to hold a body.

CCTV recovered from a supermarket and a DIY store showed Roberts buying bin bags, insulation sheets and duct tape, two days after the alleged murder.

He also got rid of his wife's clothes and bought silk sheets to prepare the former marital bedroom for his mistress.

After four days, Mrs Roberts's parents who were 'demented' with worry, became suspicious and reported their daughter missing.

Roberts fled the police and took a taxi to Asda in Liverpool, where he bought new clothes before checking himself into hotels in Chester, Nantwich and Wrexham over the next three days.

He threw his mobile phone into a canal and also sent a letter to Miss Wilson, telling her that he wanted to be with her 'and only her' for the rest of his life and that she was ' incredibly sexy with a stunning body'.

Mrs Roberts's handbag, which contained receipts of her husband's nights with Mrs Wilson, was discovered in the boot of his Toyota MR2, along with printouts of their Facebook conversations. Roberts denies murder. The trial continues.

original article here

Ex Boyfriend Blogs, Breaks Restraining Order - Goes to Court

A man who subjected his ex-girlfriend to a terrifying internet hate campaign has broken his restraining order just two months later – by writing about her in a blog.

Stephen Andreassen, 37, pleaded guilty to harassment in June after bombarding her with Facebook messages and setting up 35 websites about her when she dumped him.

He was ordered not to create any more sites about his ex, or contact her.

But on August 15, the woman’s sister found an entry on his blog detailing the court case and calling the woman involved a ‘liar’ and ‘sociopath’.

He even threatened to write a book about their relationship – adding that August 11 last year, when he first asked the woman to go out with him, was ‘the day that ruined my life’.

The blog did not name the woman – but police believed it contained enough detail to identify her.

Andreassen pleaded guilty to breaching the restraining order at Manchester magistrates court yesterday and was given a 14-week prison term, suspended for one year, and a 9pm to 7am curfew.

Gareth Hughes, prosecuting, told the court that Andreassen’s former partner ‘just wanted to get on with her life’, but was now ‘very depressed that she was back on his mind’.

“It worries her because he is very unpredictable,” added Mr Hughes. “She drives everywhere in case she bumps into him and just wants this to come to an end.”

The court heard that Andreassen and the woman had been out on dates last year. They split up at the woman’s request – and the harassment began.

Andreassen, of Ellesmere Road, Chorlton, set up a string of websites, including blogs and fake Facebook profiles for the woman and people she knew.

He posted so many messages on her genuine Facebook page that she was forced to close it down and change her email address and phone number.

The terms of the restraining order were also extended to prevent him writing a book ‘or any other material’ about his former partner.

David Philpotts, defending, said Andreassen had been ‘exceedingly foolish’ in writing the blog.

But he said the material had not been posted on any social networking site or emailed to his former partner, and suggested it could only be found using a search engine.

Andreassen was warned that if he was brought before the court again, he would go to prison.

original article here

YOUR PERSONAL INFO - JUST A CLICK AWAY?

Nearly two years after the launch of a Web site offering instant access to addresses, ages and telephone numbers, consumers remain outraged over the open access to their personal information.

The site (ZabaSearch.com) is one of the most widely known of numerous online databases that allow anyone surfing the Internet to confirm the birth month and year, address and phone number of just about anyone, free of charge. With a single click, the site puts select data about friends, relatives and strangers right at your fingertips.

It also provides links to even more comprehensive sources of information that are available for varying fees.

"I don't understand how this site can post information without the individual's consent," complained New Yorker Velma Baker. Tom Mugan of New York called the Web site "very scary," adding, "With very little effort, someone can steal your identity."

Zaba Inc. launched the site in early 2005 with little marketing or publicity. Within weeks, it emerged as one of the most comprehensive personal-data search engines on the Net. Since then, both traffic to the site and concern about the information it offers has apparently multiplied.

As word about the site circulates in one unsolicited e-mail after another, consumers rush to the site to check out what data the company has on file about them. More often than not, they don't like what they find.

As Diane and John McCarron of New Jersey explained, "This is an invasion of our privacy, and we don't know what we can do to stop it."

The concern, of course, is understandable. It's unnerving to realize that your address or age is a click away from anyone with the curiosity to uncover it. However, all of the information provided by Zaba and other online databases is from publicly available government records and commercial sources.

These online people-search companies use a mix of public records - everything from court records to the change-of-address cards you file with the post office - to generate digital dossiers that are legal to post under existing state and federal laws.

ORIGINAL ARTICLE HERE

Puppetmaster Cyberpath Coerces Victims into Webcam 'Acts'

CANADA -- An Ottawa man who pleaded guilty to blackmailing girls and young women into performing degrading acts in front of a computer like a "puppeteer pulling strings" was handed an eight-year-sentence on Friday.

Ontario Court Justice Celynne Dorval said Ryan Earl McCann, 20, committed "premeditated torture" on his young victims, and used his youth to manipulate them into doing what he wanted.

McCann used nearly a dozen phoney online personas to manipulate women and girls as young as 14 into committing "demeaning" acts under the threat of physical violence or the release of the webcam videos on the Internet.

"When manipulation failed, his weapons of choice were threats which rendered the complainants powerless and unable to control their own lives," said Dorval. "Contrary to his fictional characters, each one of these young women is a 'real' person. He leaves behind a trail of scarred and emotionally fragile teenagers and young women."

McCann pleaded guilty earlier this month to 26 charges, including extorting young girls and women to make pornographic videos, producing child pornography, invitation to sexual touching, harassment and uttering death threats against 22 victims.

One of McCann's victims left the courtroom in tears as the judge outlined the crimes committed against her.

Dorval said McCann's nearly two dozen young women suffered "significant consequences" while McCann was "callous and uncaring" to the harm he was causing.

"Shame, self-loathing and loss of confidence are common to all," said Dorval, adding some now suffer nightmares, sleeplessness and a constant concern for the safety of their families.

Dorval said McCann's videos, including one in which the webcam captured stuffed animals on the headboard of a bed behind a young girl performing explicit acts, provided a "very graphic image of the sexualizing of children."

Wearing wire-rimmed glasses and a white hooded sweatshirt, McCann occasionally hung his head as he sat silently in the prisoner's box. He briefly acknowledged his family, who sat in the front row.

"Bye Ryan, I love you," one of his sisters called out as he was being led out of court.

With two-for-one credit for 13 months of time served, he now has five years and 10 months of his sentence to serve.

Dorval said a 2007 psychiatrist's report turned out to be "prophetic" when it found McCann had the capacity to inflict "significant emotional and psychological harm" in situations where he perceives he is in power. The doctor also concluded McCann, who apologized in court last week, lacked the capacity to feel guilt or remorse.

McCann confessed to developing an elaborate scheme to recruit girls and women between the ages of 14 and 21 to perform sexually explicit acts for money by portraying his purported company, Talen's Playground, as a legitimate business.

McCann, who was 18 at the time, would initially chat with his victims on Facebook or MSN Messenger. Then he would encourage the young women to take on "clients" who would instruct them to perform in exchange for huge sums of money, depending on the explicitness and number of sexual acts they performed.

But instead of paying, McCann blackmailed the girls and young women into committing more degrading acts by threatening to expose the videos or to recruit their friends by using the victims' own online identities, which he had hacked. McCann also had two 15-year-old girls perform sex acts on him.

McCann assumed 11 different personas to further the ruse and intimidate his victims, including threatening physical violence and death. Many of them didn't realize he was the only person involved until after his plea.

Although the victims were told they were performing for clients, McCann admitted to police he had the victims do the shows "for his own personal pleasure" and because he enjoyed the thrill of being a predator.

In the videos, the young women removed clothing, danced in front of the camera, touched themselves, simulated sex acts on the handles of flashlights or hairbrushes and carried out more explicit acts. At other times, they wrote degrading messages on their bodies. Some cried throughout their performances. One threatened suicide.

In addition to prison time, McCann was ordered to provide a DNA sample to the national databank, was added to the sex offender registry and prohibited from possessing weapons for 10 years.

He was also ordered to stay away from parks, playgrounds, schools, daycares or any other place children under the age of 16 may be present for life. That order also bans him from using computers to communicate with children under 16.

CLICK HERE TO READ THE HEARTBREAKING VICTIM IMPACT STATEMENTS

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Meets Them on Craigslist, then Harasses Them

When Randall Mason’s girlfriend ended their relationship, the harassing calls began, police said. The threats led the victim to being fired and led police to capture a man they believe is a serial harasser.

The Greenwich woman called police in July and they soon determined that Mason, 28, had a history of meeting women on Craigslist. When they ended the relationship, he would harass them, the Greenwich Time reports. Police believe there are at least six victims, mostly in Connecticut and New York.

"All the women were the same age and had the same physical descriptors," Sgt. Michael Reynolds told the Time. "He has been very consistent with what he does."

Mason and the victim lived together in New York City for several months before she ended things. Then, she left New York and moved in with her parents in Greenwich.

There were Internet threats and text messages, police said, and Mason allegedly threatened serious bodily harm, the Time reports.

He is also accused of harassing the woman’s employer. The threats were so “intolerable,” she was fired, the Time reports.

"This was initially classified as a domestic violence case, but we realized during the investigation what his background was," Berry told the newspaper. "Our investigation yielded two separate warrants and we quickly developed information that he was out of state."

Police told the Time, they believe Mason left the state and went to Chicago last year to avoid the charges.

On Aug. 5, authorities in Illinois arrested Mason. On Wednesday, Greenwich police brought him back to Connecticut. On Thursday, he was arraigned on threatening and harassment charges in Stamford Superior Court on Thursday.

Mason has a criminal history that dates back to 2001, including convictions for larceny and identity theft, the Time reports, citing court records. In 2005, he served 18 months in jail, records show. Court records show that Mason was also charged with third-degree identity theft, third-degree larceny and violation of probation.

Lt. Richard Cochran, head of the domestic violence section, told the Time that it seemed that Mason had "hooked another victim" in Illinois when he was taken into custody. "None of these women had any idea what they were dealing with," Cochran told the newspaper.

Mason is being held on a $225,000 bond. He is due back in state Superior Court in Stamford on Aug. 24.

Two words: BACKGROUND CHECK!! ALWAYS!! - EOPC

original article here

Couple Uses Online Dating to Extort Money

At least 7 people were victims of extortion by a couple from Toledo through online dating phone service scam.

Kevin Zunk and Tonya Blaze were able to extort money of more than $10,000 by luring their victims to send sexual photos and messages to a phone number. They then told their victims that those messages were received by an 11 year old child and this is when the extortion happens. The victims would then paid the couple a large sum of money in order for them not to call the police.

One of their victims from Florida called the FBI after he sent money to Kevin and Tonya. The couple is now facing federal extortion charges.

original article here

Online Harassment Getting Serious Legal Attention

2 Chicago men are charged in separate cases of online harassment
by Steve Schmadekeb

A Chicago man accused of posting a fake Craigslist ad that said his sister was giving away all her possessions is facing misdemeanor charges after bargain-hunters descended on the woman's Joliet home looking to cart away her belongings.

And a married Chicago computer consultant is being accused of posting nude photos of his California ex-girlfriend having intercourse on two Web sites, as well as posting the woman's phone number and the home addresses of her and her mother.

The unrelated incidents are examples of cases that prosecutors are bringing against people who allegedly use the Internet to harass someone.

ORIGINAL ARTICLE HERE

Web Attacks Can Find Out Where You Live

Visiting a booby-trapped website, the bogus webpage designed for phishing, means inviting cyber attackers to your home, a hacker turned security researcher has warned.

The attacker exploits the shortcomings in many routers -- the device which forwards data packets to their destinations -- to find out a key identification number that can reveal the victim's whereabout in minutes, noted hacker Samy Kamkar said.

Demonstrating such an attack at the recently concluded Black Hat hacker conference in Las Vegas, Kamkar described how web attacks that begin with making contact with the target (user) can be used to find a person's physical location.

After making contact, the target is convinced to visit a booby-trapped website designed by the attacker. Once the victim clicks the attacker's link, Kamkar showed how the attacker can manipulate geo location data from Google to pinpoint a victim's precise location, the BBC reported.

Many people go online via a router and typically only the computer directly connected to the device can interrogate it for ID information.

However, Kamkar found a way to booby-trap a webpage via a browser so the request for the ID information looks like it is coming from the PC on which that page is being viewed.

He then coupled the ID information, known as a MAC address, with a geo-location feature of the Firefox web browser. This interrogates a Google database created when its cars were carrying out surveys for its Street View service.

This database links Mac addresses of routers with GPS co-ordinates to help locate them.

"This is geo-location gone terrible," said Kamkar during his presentation. "Privacy is dead, people. I'm sorry."

Mikko Hypponen, senior researcher at security firm F Secure, attended the presentation and said it was "very interesting research".

"The thought that someone, somewhere on the net can find where you are is pretty creepy," he said.

"Scenarios where an attack like this would be used would be stalking or targeted attacks against an individual," he added.

"The fact that databases like Google Streetview's Mac-to-Location database or the Skyhook database can be used in these attacks just underlines how much responsibility companies that collect such data have to safeguard it correctly," said Mr Hypponen.

In 2005, Mr Kamkar created a worm that exploited security failings in web browsers to garner more than one million "friends" on the MySpace social network in one day.

Prosecuted for the hacking, Kamkar was given three years' probation and 90 days of community service and paid damages. He was also banned from using the net for personal purposes for an undisclosed amount of time.

original article here

Internet Harassment & Revenge is a Crime

An Connecticut woman is accused of attempting to break up a marriage via the Internet.

Police said Pilar Stofega, 34, spent hours crafting fake profiles about her ex-boyfriend's wife and posting them online for the world to see.

Waterford police said Stofega was attempting to take revenge on a man she dated eight years ago by going after his wife.

Detectives said Stofega created phony profiles of the woman on adult Web sites and included her home and work phone numbers and high school yearbook photo.

Police said the ex-boyfriend began doing some Internet searching and uncovered the fake profiles and told police that Stofega was behind it.

Channel 3 Eyewitness News reporter Katy Zachry reported that Stofega told police that
Stofega was released on $2,500 bond and is facing harassment charges.

ARTICLE

Ex-Girlfriend Smeared Online by Cop

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Harassment Pushed Victim to File Lawsuit

By FRED CONTRADA

(MASSACHUSETTS) - Even after hundreds of empty boxes arrived in the mail and she was warned that firecrackers would explode on her lawn, Laurie A. Narey shied away from taking court action.

"It's not something I'm comfortable with," she said. "I'm a private person."

Eventually, however, the harassment was too much. She was getting e-mails and telephone calls blaming her for Phoebe Prince's suicide. Even the boxes she never ordered would be labeled "Phoebe Died" and "Phoebe's Killed." Someone had mistakenly linked her online to Kayla Narey, one of the six former South Hadley High School students charged in connection with Prince. It got to the point that Laurie Narey had to move out of her Lathrop Street house and stay with her father for awhile.

This week, Narey filed a civil suit against Cody M. Nallett of 122 Carew St. in Chicopee, claiming that Nallett initiated the harassment by incorrectly posting Facebook messages saying she was Kayla Narey's mother and that the defendant lived at her house.

"Her mom's laurie ... so when ya'll start calling make sure to say hi," Nallett wrote, according to the suit. In another posting, Nallett allegedly recommended calling Narey after 2 a.m. Nallett spread the word to local television and radio stations, one of which posted the false information on its Web site, Narey said. Even after Narey got through to Nallett on the Internet, Nallett wouldn't back off.

"I told her she had the wrong information," Narey said. "She said everything she did was right. She took no responsibility."

Nallett, who is being sued for libel, injurious falsehood and both negligent and intentional infliction of emotional distress, could not be reached for comment.

Narey, 47, said Friday she wanted to find another way to solve the problem before going to a lawyer.

"I decided to press charges because this went on month after month," she said. "I was able to make the decision I believe was right. This is about accountability, saying, 'Hey, you can't do this to people.'"

Narey is not the only person who has been flailing in the riptide of emotions resulting from Prince's death. Since the 15-year-old freshman hanged herself on Jan. 14, school officials and the defendants charged in her case have been subject to online humiliation and even death threats.

Laurie Narey said she is a distant relation of Kayla Narey, but Kayla has never lived at her house.

"People feel because I'm related to her I deserve this," she said. "We're talking about an action somebody has taken against me. It has nothing to do with who I'm related to."

original article here

Pastor Booked for Cyberstalking

Authorities say a DeSoto Parish, Lousiana Baptist preacher has been arrested on three counts of cyber stalking after members of his former congregation accused him of sending threatening e-mails and text messages.

Deputies say 55-year-old Jim Reynolds of Mansfield was freed from the parish jail after posting a bond totaling $3,156. Cpl. Dusty Herring told The Times that Reynolds, former pastor of Graceway Baptist Church in the Carmel community northeast of Mansfield, was arrested on warrants secured through a justice of the peace.

Herring said Reynolds had been involved in an ongoing controversy after he was released from his pastoring duties about two months ago. It was not immediately known whether Reynolds has an attorney.

original article here

Teen gets probation for email threats to ex-girlfriend

By HEATHER MCLAUGHLIN

A 14-year-old boy who used MSN to threaten a former girlfriend, a teacher at his school and another student has received 12 months supervised probation.

The teenager sent a computer e-mail message Nov. 14 to the girl to say that when he showed up at school he was going to show her a gun or a knife. He also said that he was on cocaine.

When adults became aware of the threats, they contacted the school, which in turn, contacted Fredericton Police Force, said Crown prosecutor Robert Murray in provincial court Thursday.

A search of the teen's locker did turn up a knife, Murray told Judge Julian Dickson during the sentencing hearing.

As a consequence, he was suspended from attending his middle school.

Defence counsel Sylvain Pelletier said the boy's family got him started in counselling in January after the incident and he has been attending sessions with a counsellor.

He has been receiving educational services and wants to return to school, Pelletier said.

"I wasn't going to do anything. I was just mad at the time," the youth told the judge.

"You can't threaten to kill people. It's just totally unacceptable behaviour."

The judge sentenced the teenager to report to a probation officer during his 12 months of supervised probation, keep the peace and be of good behaviour, attend school and obey the rules and have no contact with any of the three people he threatened. The judge further ordered that he attend anger management sessions.

original article here