Ever since I got onto the internet in 1992, I’ve owned many, many websites. Most proved extremely popular, winding up in the media. But I am perhaps best known for a website that exposed immoral men who put their wives or girlfriends in danger.
Many years ago, in the fall of 2006 to be exact, I set up a website that targeted men who used the casual encounters section of Craigslist. It was an experiment to see how many men who were committed to wives, girlfriends or fiancees. I thought that only single men would answer, in which case there wouldn’t be much of anything to do with that information.
Nothing could have prepared me for what was about to happen.
I posed as a teenage girl (18) who was looking for no strings attached sexual encounters. At the time, Craigslist had a “casual encounters” section where, as the name suggests, people could seek out no-commitment sexual encounters. Again, perfectly fine if a man is single (other than that whole no sex before marriage thing!), but I wanted to expose men who thought it was okay to cheat and potentially subject their partners to STI.
The idea with my experiment was not to tempt them to do anything illegal, but the idea was to gather information, just as much information as the men were willing to offer up, and then I would disclose that information to their girlfriends, wives, employers, neighbors, church associates and so on and so forth.
I targeted numerous cities across the United States, and to sweeten the pot, I included a picture of an attractive adult teen (18 or 19) girl and “her” desire for a sexual encounter or two. Or three. Hey, “she” was open-minded.
Of course, numerous men responded –almost immediately– and I engaged in long conversation with them, slowly gaining their trust so that I could gather just as much information as they were willing to provide that would then be used to make perverts out of them and expose them for all to see.
While communicating with the men in character as this girl, I would happily do research through public records, internet archives and Facebook. I would then find incriminating information as well as information on their wives or girlfriends, so I could contact them and show them proof that their man was cheating.
It took a lot of work sifting through public records using the excessive amounts of information the men willingly offered up. I wasn’t content to merely repost what they sent me like some people might have in my position. I wanted to dig deeper and deeper so I could do the most damage as possible.
I would even go so far as to contact their Facebook and MySpace friends and inform them of their associate’s actions. More often than not, I was able to find their significant others, to whom I forwarded all the information I had gathered.
In some cases, I actually was able to find their churches, neighbors and co-workers. In a few cases, the men were active duty in the military. One man was in the Navy and he was stupid enough to tell “her” where he was stationed. After a ton of research, I was able to find his commanding officer and I emailed and faxed the pertinent material. Given that the enlisted was using Navy resources, I am sure that his CO was not pleased. He thanked me for me informing him and he said he’d take it from there.
I was also able to contact numerous civilian employers, something that was made easy because an overwhelming majority of the men communicated with “her” using the employers’ resources. I was able to discover that at least two men were fired not for trying to get some online per se, but for using their resources to pursue a teenage relationship.
As a result of my website and the amount of work that went into it, numerous men were exposed and placed onto my website for all to see, including graphic photographs they sent. Based on the responses of thanks sent to me, I can happily and honestly say that my website was responsible for at least two divorces and several breakups.
So what did I post? I posted each and every photograph they sent me, which could have had copyright implications, but none of the guys knew they had rights. Not my fault. I also published real names, addresses, phone numbers, email addresses, employment information and whether he was married or in an unwed committed relationship. Yes, it felt so good to do it! I impacted many lives and ruined a few in the process. Do I regret it? Nope!
What kind of men did I expose, humiliate and cause to lose valued relationships as well as standing in their communities, as well as jobs? Well, I caught:
And of course there were many more. The married or otherwise committed men who were on duty in the military or as police officers were all using military or agency resources.
Also, I caught more than a few employees of civilian companies who used company computers or laptops, or their companies’ Internet resources. Some texted using company cell phones. Now that was just stupid!
Had iPhones and Androids been a thing back then, I probably would have been able to convince them to take embarrassing selfies and I’d then expose those as well.
Why did I do it? After all, it wasn’t as if they were trolling for underage girls. Plenty of other people have run “sting” websites where they bait the guy into thinking he was about to have sex with a girl who was anywhere from 12 to 18. That wasn’t my goal. That’s all been done before.
What the men did in my experiment was perfectly legal, just like what I did was perfectly legal. Was I cruel? Maybe, but that’s what made it so funny!
All I was trying to do was expose men in committed relations trolling for sexual partners, something immoral and dangerous, as in bringing STI’s home to their wives or girlfriends.
Look, I did it as a service to the internet community. I wanted people to know the kinds of people who were in committed relationships but who trolled online for sexual encounters. I wanted to let them know that their pastor, neighbor, employee and friend might very well be one of the guys seeking to cheat.
I found it appalling that priests, pastors and Mormon leaders were in on the game. I was happy to send the information to their parishes or churches and I was able to find churchgoers, and I sent them the information as well. In the case of the Mormons, I gathered and sent the information to the Office of The First Presidency, which is the highest level of leadership in that faith. I got everyone in on the act.
This being America, where no one wants to be held accountable for their actions, I was threatened with numerous lawsuits, but was only actually sued by one guy who thought he was a “victim.” Sure, I’d gone out of my way to find the company that he ran as CEO, and sure, I sent his “junk” photos to his employees and wife as well as the local newspaper (just as I did with the religious leaders and police officers), but filing a lawsuit was a big mistake on his part.
Although their slimeball attorney did their best to make me blink, I was successfully able to intimidate the greedy and opportunistic piece of human excrement by pointing out that I’d file a response to the lawsuit. That the attorney expected. That the attorney wasn’t scared about. I mean, of course I’d file an answer!
But what that unsuspecting lawyer did not expect or like was that I knew how to play the game. When I advised this attorney that I would attach their client’s embarrassing photos and communications as exhibits, which would make them all public record for all to see, the game changed and, boy, howdy did it change quickly.
I further advised that I would then “accidentally” forward my response, complete with said exhibits, to local and national media outlets, along with other people such as neighbors, friends, church associates if any, and anyone else I could think of who might have even the smallest amount of vested interest in the information. Obviously, that would accomplish the direct opposite of the client’s goals.
Poof! The attorney disappeared!
The only other legal problem I had was that I had to stop using a domain that I created which had “craigslist” in its URL. Craigslist sent me a cease and desist order, which I immediately honored. I merely got another domain.
But by that time, the damage had been done, the fun had been had and the website had run its course. Slowly, as word got out, more and more guys in relationships learned that cheating out in the virtual open was not a wise idea.
None of the men except for one retaliated. The only one who got froggy and jumped was a guy in my hometown who threatened my life if I didn’t take his information down. He was obviously one of the men who thought he was too good to be held accountable for his actions.
Apparently, he was married and his wife went to her mother’s after I knocked on his door while he was at work and I handed the proof to her in a manila envelope. It was my extreme pleasure to wreck his life for threatening mine. Had he not done that, I wouldn’t have taken the extraordinary step of notifying his wife. He did it to himself.
I then moved his case to the front page of the site and sent copies of the information I’d gleaned to his neighbors in addition to what I’d dropped off to said wife. He never bothered me again and for fun a lot later, I found him as a defendant in a divorce case.
I don’t feel bad that I ended relationships, jobs and good military standing. In almost every case, the women involved thanked me for exposing their now former significant others. Likewise, employers thanked me and the Navy man’s CO, whom I previously told you about emailed me to express his gratitude.
Yes, I feel that I performed a valuable service and I would happily do it again. Times have changed, and there are plenty of more mediums I could use to expose perverts.
I have no sympathy for the guys I caught, because if they’d really encountered this girl (I used a different picture and name in every city that I targeted), then the women they were with would be cheated upon without their knowledge.
I’m very good at what I do. I’ve in the past exposed numerous people, hunting down public and not-so-public information. Home addresses, places of employment, relationship status, phone numbers and so much more came easily to me. I’ve been paid to investigate people and I always find what I’m looking for without regard for the consequences for the target.
The website proved extremely popular. I was interviewed in several magazines, newspapers and on various radio stations’ morning shows around the country.
At its peak, the website had some 13,000 unique visitors a day. Most of the visitors would stay and read the entire website. Many of the visitors came back often, usually daily. I had a hit on my hands, but sooner or later one runs out of cities to troll. In retrospect, I should have taken it international.
My advice? If you’re in a committed relationship, don’t troll for sex online. You might just have me, or someone like me who has way more time on his hands than I do, on the other end of the conversation!