Cyberharasser’s Court Action Backfires On Him

Most of you who read this will know the experiences I am about to share with you as some of you reading have also been victimized by this individual. I am not sure exactly when the subject person started harassing others, but my point of reference starts with the George Zimmerman Trial.

I’m referring to the individual as my accuser.   It never occurred to me that by exercising my right to freedom of speech, that a series of events would lead to being threatened, stalked, harassed, defamed, and eventually led to court. But, this is what happened and it happened as a result of my advocacy for Trayvon Martin.

During the Zimmerman trial, I became familiar with an individual over social media. I had blocked several of his twitter and Facebook accounts due to the racist comments, racist memes and threats of violence. As time went on and the verdict was announced, and in protesting the verdict, the subject harasser stepped up the memes. They were more disturbing as if this was his method of a victory parade essentially rubbing salt in the wounds.

But that was expected. I mean when you look at the blatant racism in his memes, in his tweets and on his Facebook pages, who would not expect anything different. His postings make it that he a person who believes in white supremacy ideology.

Shortly after the verdict, there was a 911 call made by Shellie Zimmerman, wife of George Zimmerman. Shellie’s 911 call was aired. Twitter is on fire with the current events. George Zimmerman, a man whose entire defense was that he was too weak to fight off 150-pound kid and that he had no other choice but to use deadly force, could suddenly fight, as it was reported he assaulted Shellie’s father, then threatened them both with a gun.

Concerned that this man, in my eyes, just got away with murder, I decided to write the Chief of police in Lake Mary FL. I did not expect a response whatsoever, but one came. Chief Bracknell confirmed Shellie’s story; confirmed there was a gun in the car; but gave a laundry list of excuses as to why they could not and did not arrest George.

Shellie subsequently recanted, and in Florida, if there is no victim there is no crime. To me that doesn’t mean the crimes were not committed and in reality, it simply means the law is written in such a way that it allows criminals to manipulate their victims into recanting which is what took place here.

After several emails between myself and Chief Bracknell, I began to share what he told me on Twitter. Shortly thereafter, Judd Legum of Think Progress reached out to me, wanting to see the emails, and was considering doing a story on them. I had no problem with Legum doing a story on those emails provided he redact my personal information, such as my email address.

Legum stated he would redact my email address and the story ran on Think Progress.

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Just as this story ran, suddenly Zimmerman supporters were enraged. In particularly enraged was the disturbed individual who I experienced earlier.  The Zimmerman fan base obtained my email address from the email and because I was posting on Twitter that I wrote the email, I began getting harassed.  I received a tweet from a Zimmerman supporter in a threatening manner with the individual stating “I Have your e mail address”.

Before I knew it, this group of people ran an IP trace on my email address and found my location to be in Southern California. From there, things took a turn for the worse. The individuals responsible for this have confided in a man in the Fresno area to dox me. (Doxing is searching for the personal information of others for bad-faith purposes, such as using the information to intimidate.)

By early January of 2014, the subject person was creating Facebook pages that had Google earth pictures of our house, the homes of those following me on Twitter, and also posted our addresses and pictures of our family members, our phone numbers etc.

Why would I say “our”? I am not his only victim. Over time I have learned there are dozens of people who support Trayvon Martin that have been victimized by this man in the same manner. The problem is that the subject man knows how to manipulate the system, and knows that since most of his victims live in other states, he believes there is very little that can be done to hold him to account.

During this time his harassment stepped up. He continued to make threats of violence and stated that he gave George Zimmerman our addresses. At this point, a fellow Trayvon Martin supporter who was also victimized along with his wife at the hands of this man, reached out and informed me that this person has a social worker and he is mentally disturbed.

I was able to obtain contact information for his social worker and did speak with him expressing my concern. However, the social worker is limited as to what he can do. I also called the subject man to ask him directly to stop, but he decided to allow the call to go to voicemail. I left a message informing him that he needed to stop doing what he has been doing or I would pursue my legal options.

Of course, he didn’t stop. Trying to be reasonable with someone who is mentally disturbed and who holds to White Supremacist ideologies, is like trying to get water and oil to mix. It’s just not going to happen. From January through April, his harassment and doxing continued. Suddenly out of the blue, and unexpectedly, I got a Facebook message from his estranged wife as she saw him harassing and threatening me on Facebook.

His estranged wife informed me that she too was a victim of his harassment and that some of his friends have been harassing her on his behalf. The subject man filed for divorce, but while his estranged wife was communicating with me, he told his friends that he and his wife were still together. I told his estranged wife that there is nothing I can do, and that she would have to be the one to call him out on it.

I never imagined she would call him out and confront him on his behavior, but to my surprise she did, and as a result this man decided to take it one step further and threaten me with a restraining order.

On May 2, 2014, the subject man posted what appeared to be a PDF file of a declaration for his petition for a restraining order, threatening to file it that afternoon. A friend of mine quickly reached out and sent me the screenshot of his post, and pointed out that one of the window tabs he had opened read “Santiago Rodriguez TRW Credit Score (Secured)”. In other words, the subject man had somehow acquired my private credit report.

I immediately contacted law enforcement in Fresno, CA. It took four days for the police to return my call to finalize the report. During those four days, the subject man filed for a restraining order and was granted a temporary retraining order (TRO) until a hearing scheduled for June 2^nd 2014. Using the TRO as a means to intimidate, he sent a comment to this blog threatening to go after Xena unless she deleted this blog.

During the time leading up to the hearing on June 2^nd, I received threat after threat with jail time from the subject man. Of course not knowing what this man’s capable of and knowing he has lied on his declaration in order to obtain the TRO, I knew for sure I had to hire an attorney and fight this.

In the back of my mind the entire time, I was grateful he brought it to court because this was my best chance of getting this behavior to stop. My attorney eventually forwarded me copies of his declarations and claims, and this is where things took a turn down crazy lane.

This man out right lied up and down. He claimed that I called him when I did not; claimed I called and harassed his estranged wife (but they have not lived together since 2010); claimed that I made threats to harm her 3-year-old daughter; and to top it all off, he went all in on a bit of insanity by claiming and naming Benjamin Crump, Natalie Jackson and John Phillips as lead conspirators who send people out to harass Zimmerman supporters.

He also alleged that about 12 Trayvon Martin Supporters are co-conspirators to the harassment. I was in shock at how someone could blatantly lie on sworn statements and just get away with it. Upon my attorney’s research, we discovered that the subject man has a history of abusing the legal system. During the subject man’s divorce that he filed, we learned that he attempted to obtain custody and visitation of his wife’s daughter that he knows is not his child. When his request for custody and visitation was denied, he then advanced his attack on the father of that child by attempting to obtain a restraining order against him.

Once that tactic did NOT work, he then appealed the court’s ruling regarding the custody and visitation of a child that he did not father. His appeal was also denied and to sprinkle a little more insanity on this, the subject man then made a 2^nd attempt to obtain a restraining order against the father of that child.

The motions were so baseless, so frivolous that his estranged wife had to motion the court to rule him a vexatious litigant. Going into the hearing on June 2^nd it was clear that my stalker had a history of abusing the system .

June 2^nd quickly arrived. I met with my attorney at his office at 8 am. We had a quick prep sifting through some of our evidence and a short walk to the court house. A little nervousness kicked in as it appeared we may get there late. As we walked into the court room I noticed my accuser tucked nicely in the corner. He poked his head forward after hearing the doors open and looked at me and my attorney. He then sat back and faced forward. Reality set in.

He had talked about how I was some bum on welfare living in section 8 housing, having an EBT card etc, that I couldn’t afford an attorney. He was suddenly faced with the reality that I did not meet his stereotype. In his mind, there was no way that a supporter of Trayvon Martin would not be on public assistance. He assumed that no one he is against has the means and know-how to face him in court.

As our case was called, the most bizarre series of events began to unfold. The Judge asked my accuser to state his case. To my surprise, he asked the judge “well you didn’t get it? I filed a motion this morning.” What he had filed was a motion to disqualify my attorney. I was mind-blown like who the heck does this guy think he is?! He lacks standing to ask the court to disqualify an attorney who does not represent him.

The judge responded that the motion was denied. My accuser then asked about the Motion to exclude screen shot evidence. The judge replied that he was not the prejudiced party and also denied that Motion. Obviously, my accuser wanted those screen shots out of evidence because of the dirt he has on his hands. He knows that the evidence shows the truth as to what is really going on.

Suddenly, my accuser started making a laundry list of claims. The judge asked for evidence to support that. Words cannot describe what the accuser did next. Imagine a man with OCD, and suddenly someone drops a box of toothpicks. My accuser fumbled “umm well it appears I have temporarily misplaced it.”

Before I knew it, the case was thrown out. I didn’t even get a chance to present any of my evidence. In fact, my attorney leaned over and told me “You’re about to win. Do you still want to speak to the judge?” I told my attorney I sure did because I needed this to be heard.

I explained to the judge exactly what was going on, and stated that my accuser is not a victim of any sort of harassment nor is his ex wife, who he claimed that I harassed, but who did not appear in court. I went further and explained that it was I, and many others, who are victims of harassment, stalking and threats of violence. I told the judge I came to court because it was my best chance to get this to stop. I hired an attorney because I am facing an habitual liar.

My accuser then said, “Well he is unhappy with the Zimmerman verdict in which a court agreed he was justified in self-defense.”

The judge looked at him and said, “Well that sounds like freedom of speech to me. Even some of the police officers who took your reports said it sounds like they are exercising their rights to freedom of speech.”

Here is the guy’s attitude in a nutshell. He believes that he is justified to demean, defame, harass, and stalk any person who voices an opinion contrary to his opinions about George Zimmerman.

In a last ditch attempt, my accuser said to the judge, “I’d be okay with a mutual restraining order if Mr. Rodriguez is okay with that.” The judge looked at my accuser and told him that his request would not presented and was denied.

As we walked out and walked back to my attorney’s office, (keep in mind it’s a two block walk), before I got there I received calls that this man was at it again. Nothing could prepare me for his next move. One would think that after having gone through something like that,  he should let it go and move on, but he did not.

(Next time we will talk about his appeal and the need to restrain the accuser by court order as a result of his continued harassment)