Call Her Daddy - How to Handle a Psycho Ex

Episode Date: September 11, 2022

Have you ever dealt with a psycho ex? Did they bombard you with hundreds of texts and emails? Threaten to contact your friends, family or employer? Post your nudes online? Father Cooper is talking to victims rights attorney Carrie Goldberg, who is an expert at fighting psychos, assholes, pervs and trolls. Carrie speaks from personal experience, when she ended things with an abusive ex he went to great lengths to stalk and harass her and attempted to make her life a living hell. Carrie is here to tell her story and to provide legal advice on how to handle a psycho ex.

What is up, Daddy Gang? It is your founding father, Alex Cooper, with Call Her Daddy. Keri Goldberg, welcome to Call Her Daddy. Thank you. Everyone listening, Keri is a victim's rights attorney who has founded her own law firm that provides legal help for clients under attack by pervs, assholes, psychos, and trolls. Carrie, I'm so appreciative for you coming on today because I know this is going to unfortunately, fortunately help a lot of women that are going through this. So can you explain the types of cases your law firm takes on? The one thing that all of our

clients have in common is that they either were attacked or they're currently under attack. So a lot of our clients, they have a vengeful ex or a vengeful ex's ex who is using the internet to try to destroy them, send their nudes around, impersonate them, harass them. And we've had clients whose exes have actually fabricated false evidence and then made false police reports and gotten them arrested. And we had one client who was being impersonated and she actually was charged with 12 counts of felonies for all these crimes that had been doctored and she was in jail for 88 days. We like to say that we go after everybody from the biggest corporations like Amazon to your

ex-boyfriend. We sue, we get money, we get people arrested. We have a whole glorious toolbox of ways to go after people and companies. Well, you're fighting the good fight because it's so disgusting and disturbing the lengths that people will go. And it's so fucking violating. And your work is inspired, I know, by your personal experience with a stalker. Can you take us through what happened to you? Yeah. So it was back in 2013. I'd met somebody off of a dating app and it was a super whirlwind relationship where within the first date, we were professing our love to each other, never spent a night apart.

And as I've come to realize in this work, those are the relationships that then become violent and controlling and jealous really, really fast. The ones that just have that really high velocity from the very beginning. And so after a couple of months, he became obsessive and abusive and violent. And I tried to break up a couple times. And when I finally had the guts to go all the way through with it, he then just waged a scorched earth attack on me. He had naked videos and pictures. And then I was already a lawyer at the time, but doing elder law at a nonprofit. I had no idea how to deal with this, but he would send emails to me and say that business colleagues were blind copied on them. He broke into my apartment. He would text me, all my friends

make up these horrific lies. And then he started to make false police reports about me and would claim that I was in this corruption scheme with judges trading sex for legal favors. And at the time, all my judges were like these middle aged guardianship judges. I wasn't really what they were interested in, but he was faking stuff. And in New York, there's mandatory arrests. If you accuse somebody of any sort of domestic violence crime, regardless of the validity of the evidence. And so I was actually arrested. And so he was weaponizing the legal system. When I tried to get an order of protection, he counterclaimed and tried to get one against me. And it was a six month ordeal. I moved because I needed a doorman. And I was super scared that he was going to

falsely accuse me of violating the order of protection. So I wanted to live somewhere where there were cameras. I would like wake up at two in the morning just to go to an ATM so that I would have proof of where I was because I was so sure that he was just going to continue this pattern of false claims. He said that he'd hired people with HIV to rape me. And I was, I actually believed everything was true. And I was terrified, absolutely terrified. And I couldn't find a lawyer who had any sort of expertise with an individual who was just absolutely hellbent on their targets destruction. I had a very nice woman who tried to help me get an order of protection. I had a very nice man who was a criminal attorney

who was working with me in defending the criminal charges. But for everybody, this was like a real one-off case. That was what was, I think, the scariest part of this was that no one really knew how to handle somebody who was just absolutely unhinged and didn't play by the rules. I, first of all, I'm so sorry that you went through that because I feel like as a woman, that is so terrifying. You were believing all these things because how could you not, you know, like he was filing these things in court. And so when he's like, oh, I'm going to have three men come with HIV, like you're like, oh, well then why would I not think that's going to happen? And so I can imagine like the paranoia and like the loneliness you felt was to an extreme.

And the fact that you're saying no one knew how to handle this. No one dealt with these cases. Yeah, it was really bad. And I say this with so many of my clients also, because when I finally broke up with him, I was already in a really beaten down, compromised state where so much of my life was controlled by him. I'd gotten really isolated. It was only like four months, but like, he was so jealous that during that relationship, I barely hung out with my friends. And so they were all kind of pissed off at me. My relationships with my siblings and my parents all got strained. And they were, they all saw that this was a really unhealthy relationship,

but I wouldn't listen to them. I even like stopped going to my therapist because she was telling me this is an unhealthy relationship. And I was like, I'm in love with this person. I can't hear you. So all my support system was, was really compromised. And so the people that would have really helped me, I wasn't taking their advice or their help. It exacerbated it. I see it. I see this so much with my clients when they're leaving an abusive relationship. The first job is just to like go at their pace and earn their trust and kind of recognize that even though they probably know that they're in a horrible situation it can be really really hard to leave it and they might be

giving their abuser a lot more weight and be thinking that the threats are, are just more extreme than they are more likely than they actually are. Do you have any advice for someone listening right now? That's like, Oh, I don't really want to hear it. But that may be me. Because I guess I don't have any friends or family left. Because I know it's so much easier said than done. Like just leave. It's not that easy. My first piece of advice is to read this book called Why Does He Do That? That book changed my life because it is about people who are in relationships with sociopaths. And the one thing about that book is it kind of is about how to stay in the relationship with sociopaths.

And so when I got a book deal, I kind of wanted to write the next aspect of that, which is what to do when you are under attack, and trying to leave a sociopath. So my book has a lot of stories about leaving and about the different types of abusers and the patterns of abuse that we see. Because once a person realizes that their offender almost has like a playbook, it becomes a little less scary and they become more predictable. And then once you have that distance, even if you're still in the relationship, I think that distance can kind of help differentiate a person who's in an abusive relationship from their abuser because they can. I think the whole problem is that there's a merger between the two people where they're almost become one person. seeing the other person and realizing that your whole life doesn't have to be dedicated to walking on eggshells to be accommodating their rages and their moods and, and stuff. So I think that they should read my book, nobody's victim. This is not a book plug.

No, it is actually a really helpful book for just understanding the different kind of taxonomies of abuse. And then I feel like there's a code, there's kind of a knowledge that people in abusive situations have, or you always, it might not be your best friend or your mom or somebody that you've historically been really close to, but there is somebody in your life that wants to help you and wants to help you get out of it. And it's probably somebody that you can just tell has been in a horrible situation themselves. It might be a lawyer. People can always call us. We help people break up and can help with like the safety planning and the pre planning that you can do before you break up. And we help people figure out what excuses they're

making. Sometimes it's something like we share a lease together, or we have a dog in common, or the most complicated thing is we have a kid in common. But other times it's things that, hey, you can just walk away from this. We have concert tickets next month, or we're planning a vacation, or it's going to be the anniversary of his mom's death. I'm using the male pronouns, but obviously abuse comes in every, every gender and abused people are every gender as well. But there's a lot of preparation that can be done to get somebody in the right mind frame. I want to kind of discuss, because I know there's going to be people listening to this that are like, okay, I'm going through something maybe similar or, you know, somewhere in this realm of harassment with an ex. So just to discuss

some of the crimes that your ex committed against you and break down what to do in each situation in order to provide listeners with advice. So your ex flooded your phone with hundreds of threatening emails and texts. If a client comes to you because they are being flooded with threatening texts and emails, how do you advise them to respond? So usually when, when somebody is being bombarded like that, all their ex wants is a response and they want it from them. And it's like crack. So I'm my first bit of advice is do not respond. Besides, you know, when when you break up with somebody, you should say, okay, I've made a decision, this relationship is over. And this is not open for discussion.

And I will be in contact with you in the next three days to figure out logistics. But basically, if it's an abusive person, do not have a conversation with them because they will talk you out of it. They will beat you down and it will just be kind of easier to just make peace and stay than to deal with whatever wrath. Because people have already adjusted and learned how to tolerate being in an abusive relationship. And the devil they know is a lot more tolerable than the devil they don't. And so it's true that in a lot of times, in a lot of ways, the breakup can be so unknown and it's scary. If you start to break up with somebody and then they become furious or threatening or try to win you over with gestures and stuff, you will, you will wimp out. I mean, it's just like, it's, it's the pragmatic thing to do is to wimp out because that is

in your short-term benefit, but it's not in your long-term benefit. And so you don't want to subject yourself to a conversation and that can feel really uncomfortable because it might be somebody that you've feel compassion for. And that person has taught you to feel guilty about them at all times and has taught you to feel indebted to them and dependent on them. And so it feels very counterintuitive to cut them off, but that's the only way you're going to get out of it because they're a parasite that is feeding off of you. And you have to just walk them off and they will flail until they find their next host.

But that's the only thing that you can do really for your own self preservation. So do not contact them besides just saying, do not, you know, I've made a decision. Do not contact me for X period of time, let them flail. And then you can have a third party who you trust, whether it's a lawyer or a friend, then help you with the logistics because the offender is going to say, well, they're going to use all these excuses. And first they're going to be really blaming and talk about how you screwed them. And even if you live apart, they have all the stuff that they need. They'll think of all these excuses for why you have to reconvene for a conversation or something.

So giving them a set time when you will deal with those logistics is important, but then actually having a third party come in and be a representative is really good. But also in those three days, the offender starts going scorched earth. In a lot of cases, that's when we get involved and we get an order of protection for somebody. An order of protection is sort of the biggest and most important tool available to people who are in abusive situations and are being aggressed against over and over and over again, because it's kind of like a lawsuit. But instead of suing somebody for money, you're suing them to leave you alone. You've exercised your right to not be threatened and not be contacted by this person. And that person is not respecting that boundary that you've said, because we all should have the right to break up.

But it's amazing how many people who are on the other side who are being broken up with don't actually see it as their ex's right to like not be in a relationship with them. How do you rationally explain to them like, no, it will get worse if you respond. Cause I understand that feeling of like, I don't want to block him. I don't want to not answer because then what if it escalates? Do you know what I mean? Yeah. And I mean, I think it's one of the hardest things is just to tolerate that discomfort of not responding. Like our client, even before they become our client, sends an unequivocal message to their ex saying,

please do not contact me. And then that person unequivocally ignores it and continues to text and call or show up. Then that's when it becomes harassment. And so once they've gotten the instruction to just leave you alone, and they ignore it, then that becomes harassment, which is illegal. And once you're in fear for your safety, then it goes from harassment to stalking, which is even more illegal. And orders of protection are for situations where you've

been physically attacked, but they also are for situations where you're being threatened, where there's a course of conduct like harassment, or that's, it's putting you in fear, like stalking in a lot of states like New York and California, somebody's threatening you, you know, they're threatening to post your naked pictures on the internet, or they do actually post your naked images. Those are all things that you can get an order of protection for. And it's amazing how effective an order protection is because you'd think like, oh, it's just a piece of paper. It's not going to stop a bullet. But sometimes that's all that's required is just, you know, a judge has signed

an order that is saying you have to leave this person alone. Right. And it can be a real like wake up call for the offender. And they don't necessarily need more instruction than that. This is not worth the effort. Like it's actually really over. I don't like trust or respect my girlfriend enough to understand it when she tells me that. But now I have a judge that is telling me that the relationship is over. So I'm going to, I'm going to respect that sometimes in certain situations where we think we have an offender who is more cemented in reality, we can get them to go away with just a cease and desist letter. But if it's somebody who's really kind of compulsive and impulsive or has a substance abuse issue

and gets drunk and then makes the threats or has already been pretty violent, then we get an order of protection. And then if it's somebody who's even further unhinged, then we just go straight to the police. When you talk about getting an order of protection, let's say someone is sitting, listening to this episode and is literally like, wait, you said like, go to the court and get one. Like, wait, hold on. I don't even know how to do that. Like, can you really simplify to someone

that has no resources is like bringing their cash from under their bed and is like, how do I begin? Like, where do I go? What do I say? Yes. Let's break that down. I'm so glad you're asking about this Alex. Cause it is like when we do something over and over again, obviously we lose sight of the actual complexity of it. So basically the first thing that a person could do is just Google the name of their state and their town or their county and domestic violence legal services. And a lot of communities have funded free lawyers who are basically just there to help victims of domestic violence. You know, it can be a bit of a mind hurdle to identify as a victim of domestic violence. But if you're being harassed or threatened, then that's the category of lawyer that you need. The websites will have instructions about hiring somebody as a lawyer. And again, there are lawyers in many, many communities. In New York,

there are so many. In California, there are so many who are funded just to provide free legal services. There also are in some family courts, like here in New York, there are lawyers that are also funded to just be, they have offices in the courts. And so they will help people get an order of protection. The next thing to do is figure out the court itself will have a website. And so you can Google order protection, or in some places they're called domestic violence order protection or temporary restraining order. And there will be instructions on the website. You can file these electronically. And it's basically a matter of filling out a form that talks about under oath, everything you say has to be true, but talks about the experience

that you've had. And, you know, I always recommend that a person detail the first encounter of violence, the most extreme encounter of violence, and the most recent encounter of violence. And you have to prove that you need an order of protection, that this person's not honoring your right to be left alone. And then you either file it electronically like you can in New York. And that's really an innovation because of the pandemic. But some states are getting back where they're requiring people to file in person and actually have an import person court date. And then if you tell the clerk and the people what you're there to do, then they'll point you in the right direction. And I recommend that people go early in the morning at 9am when the court opens and to just plan on taking the day off of work. It can be really inconvenient, but you don't want to go at three and then have to come back the next day. There's

a lot of waiting around. These are considered emergency orders. And so the judges have to kind of work it in between their other cases. And so there can be a lot of a lot of waiting around. The goal is to walk out with a temporary order of protection that says that that person has to leave you alone. And then there's cops that are stationed at the court, or you can take it to the precinct, and they will serve that on your offender. And once the offender receives the order of protection, then that's when it goes into effect. There's also another way to do it. You can hire a lawyer like me, and I can basically shepherd a person through it, because you want to get it right. It's something where it's never fun to spend money on this, but you want to get it right. You know, like it's something where it's never fun to spend money on this, but you want to get it right. And so if there's a way to either get a free

lawyer or hire a lawyer, that's way better than doing it on your own because this is scary and no one, and just the process of navigating an unknown thing like court is scary, but it is something that is possible to do on your own. I appreciate you going through that because it's a hard situation that you're going through and being alone in it is not ideal. So do you ever advise your clients to change their phone number when an ex is relentlessly finding ways to contact them or as far as change their address, change their phone number when an ex is relentlessly finding ways to contact them, or as far as change their address, change their name? Well, in really extreme situations, I like to kind of not subject clients to like massive

inconveniences if we don't have to. I'd rather get them an order of protection, which is actually quite simple, and see if that resolves the problem because to violate an order of protection is an automatic arrest. So there's a real disincentive for an offender to violate it. It's harder to get somebody arrested for harassment at the precinct or stalking. It can, it can take a, it can take weeks or months for the police to do an investigation, if it's like internet-based harassment, to subpoena, to really prove that it's the offender. However, if there's an order of protection, then the crime is violating it. And that's a lot easier to prove. And so there can be an arrest the same day.

You know, it's really scary when you're alone. And a lot of times I feel like this can happen to like young women or men that are going through it. And I think what you had touched on is, the threatening of the naked photos. It's such a terrifying threat. It's also so not only violating, but disturbing because it can affect this person's job, their family life, et cetera. So if someone listening is going through a situation where someone is threatening to post their nude photos online, what is the first thing that they can do to protect themselves from this person threatening them? So the first thing that they can do is, I mean, it's illegal to threaten to post naked pictures, because usually there's an element of coercion. I'm going to post this to punish you for X, or I'm going to post this if you don't come back to me, which is also illegal.

It's illegal everywhere except Massachusetts and other states. But we now have 48 states plus D.C. where it crime to post. And so, so a lot of times, like the offender won't actually post it, they're just making the threats, but it's illegal to even send it. But also, things have really changed. And like, when I started the firm, there were only three states that had crimes for revenge porn. And now there's 48. Plus, there's the Violence Against Women's Act, which President Biden just recertified after it had expired during Trump's presidency. There's now a civil cause of action. So you can sue an offender $150,000 per picture that they share on the internet and disseminate. A lot of offenders, of course, are judgment proof. So that doesn't necessarily apply. If you don't have any money to go after, then a civil lawsuit doesn't make

sense. But it still at least signals that this is illegal. But also, I think when I have a victim who's really scared of something, it's important to kind of talk through, well, what if the worst case scenario happens? What if this person actually does post it? And number one, it's a crime. So we could then go report it to the police and that person could actually be arrested. We have grounds for an order of protection. But also it's so much easier now to get it off the internet than it used to be. Because we used to have all these websites that were just dedicated to revenge porn. There is an excellent documentary about

the most hated man on the internet about Hunter Moore. We used to have all these websites that were just there to post your ex's naked pictures. And now the most, I mean, the most efficient way to share them is, is really through Facebook and Instagram and all those companies now have policies and they'll remove it. And sometimes they, a lot of them even will detect it through their AI. And then the other problem that we used to have was that people would post the revenge porn. Also, it would be posted on Pornhub and then it would be, it would show up in their Google results. And that no longer happens because Google now has policies. If for some reason, somebody's revenge porn is linked on a Google search, they have policies

where you can fill out a form and they'll remove it. If you take a nude selfie, you own that image. But unfortunately, if it's a video that they took or a photo they took, you don't own it. So what can you do if that video is posted? So that's right. We own the copyright of all images that we take. But if the offender took it with or without your knowledge, they technically would own the copyright. But they're posting it as proof of an illegal activity. And especially if it's clearly made without a person's knowledge or permission, then that's not just unlawful surveillance, but it's also the dissemination of unlawful surveillance, which is multiple crimes. So, you know, there's, there's several different

things. Number one, you can report it to the police. You can get an order of protection. I know I'm like really talking hard about orders of protection, but there it's a same day thing where you can petition a court for an order of protection. And within the day, you can have a temporary order of protection that says that they need to leave you alone and that they can't share your images with anybody else. And there's also like legal services for people. But the other thing is the pragmatic thing of, I need to get that shit off the internet, which is, I mean, it's first about finding where it is, which can be a task. But then even if you don't own the copyright, most websites, even if they're

porn websites, don't really want to be peddling in non-consensual porn. So let's say it's up on Pornhub. I mean, they'll take it down whether or not you own the copyright of it, just because they don't want that on their website. And same with all big social media. They'll just take it down regardless of who owns it. That's really helpful. And your ex also contacted your friends and family and colleagues to spread harmful lies. What do you advise clients to do when an ex is repeatedly contacting their their friends, family, co-workers, or even their boss? Well, that can be really upsetting and disturbing for victims because the narrative is hijacked by this person who hates them. And first thing I would say is, yes, that person is not reliable. And so all the people that that person is contacting to spread rumors about you, the very fact that they're contacting your boss or your friends or your family to say this shit

makes it so that they're not that believable in the first place. So I want to tell victims to not over worry about the content of the rumors. Because if one of my employees, exes start contacting me and saying she was a pedophile, and you know, saying the worst thing that they could about her. I'd be like, I'd be like, you are not reliable, because you hate her and have a vendetta. And it's so transparent that you're just trying to destroy her. There's zero benefit to the community by you telling me this stuff. So I already don't believe you. That will be true of anybody of value in the victim's life that the offender is trying to reach out to. But when these rumors are being spread about you, it's really hard to keep that

in mind. Have you ever had a client be fired because the boss believed some of the stuff and then just said, I don't want to be involved in this? Yeah. I mean, one of my employees, who's an incredible lawyer, she went to law school after this terrible breakup. She was a principal at a high school. And her ex planted content on her work computer, and then told the Department of Ed that she was sleeping with children's parents in the classroom, and that she had all this content. And then he spread pictures of her in lingerie to the New York post and they published them. She was sent to the New York, we call it the rubber room. She was, she was put on administrative leave. They just straight up believed him, you know, and none of it was founded. It was absolutely not. But the school just had this like knee jerk reaction. We had a case where somebody worked at a law firm and the ex created like this dossier of all their text messages that made it look like she was cheating clients and padding the bill. She had a job offer revoked because of it. But in more and more states,

like in New York, it's illegal to discriminate for housing or employment against crime victims. That includes victims of domestic violence. So when I have a situation where an offender is going to be going after a client of mine, I have to get permission, draft an email to their boss and say, just so you are aware, I represent your employee. She's presently a crime victim and we need your help and we need you to help by making reasonable accommodations for her. And it already kind of then braces them to then recognize any incoming vitriol from a retaliatory ex as just that. And sometimes I'll just put them on notice and say, in the event that blah, blah, blah reaches out to the firm, please let me know, because this is further evidence of a crime. Unfortunately, this is way more common than people may assume. And so this information is

so helpful. Can you explain the term swatting and how it's used as a harassment tactic? Swatting is so dangerous. So it's basically when a person calls 911 and fabricates a violent emergency. So what I would be doing right now is I would be calling 911 and saying that Alex Cooper is at her home with an automatic weapon and has just shot her dog and is threatening to shoot other neighbors and is going to go to school and shoot it up. And then what happens is that a SWAT team then will storm your house with guns drawn. And there have been situations where people have been killed from that. It's fabricating an emergency situation. How does someone fight against this tactic? Oh man, it's hard. It's really hard because it's common among gamers. Why? The person who swats wants to see the response.

And so if somebody is on Twitch, live streaming a video game and then get swatted. They can get swatted in real time on while they're making the video that's happened. I had a client whose ex swatted her and he would call like the NYPD and the LAPD and say that she was impersonating her and say that she was coming to shoot them up. And then she would get visited. She never got visited by like a SWAT team, but cops would come to her house. And so in those cases, we recommend that if you can see it coming, it's important to notify your local precinct ahead of time. But isn't it illegal for this person to be calling and making up these lies?

Yes. Yes. In our case where our client was being swatted, her offender was sent to prison for five years under federal felonies for a hoax threat. Wow. In your experience, how has the rise of social media impacted your business? I mean, social media is in every nook and cranny and crevice of my business. Like there's no harassment or stalking or revenge porn crime that happens without social media. And then we represent a lot of people who've been catastrophically injured through social media or their children have. People who bought pills through Snap that were laced with fentanyl and then their child died. People who were radicalized on suicide forums and then purchased poisons from Amazon. I mean, we do represent people of sexual assault, but even they are impacted by the internet because

oftentimes they meet their predator through a dating app or they try to alert our clients, try to alert people about the dangers of a predator and they use social media to do that. And then our client is sued for defamation. So there's really no part of my law firm that isn't impacted by social media and social media, of course, has changed us as a people where we're not comfortable dealing with the discomfort of a strong emotion. If somebody is super upset because they just got dumped, often they'll take it out online, whether that's by saying hateful, harmful stuff or posting images about your ex or texting them manically. We just like, don't have the ability to just

tolerate raw emotions. Like, like I think we used to. And so there's just so much more content that gets produced from toxic relationships. Totally. If there is one thing that you could leave listeners with based on the hundreds of clients you've represented and what you've learned from all this, if someone's going through this, what would it be? Never worry alone. The hardest part of any sort of crime that somebody is experiencing is the feeling that it's only you, that nobody else in your life has any inkling of what you're going through or has any experience with something similar. But the most important thing is just to tell somebody that you trust. And this is also true with kids who, we have a lot of kids who are being threatened by a stranger on the internet. Maybe they were groomed and sent that person an image and then the offender then blackmailed them for more images and then has put them in fear of their life or fear of their family's reputation, those situations escalate by people just suffering in silence.

And so it's actually just a thing you have to get through and you get through it by making difficult, but strong decisions. I can't thank you enough. That is, I can already feel how many people are going to connect with this and also feel, I wouldn't even use the word at ease, but just feel so much more comforted and knowing the way that you laid this out. Carrie is so, so helpful. And I absolutely everyone listening, please go to Carrie's website. I'll put it in the description. You know, Alex, you are so good at your job. I could just talk to you forever. And there's so many things about what we talked about

that no one has ever pulled out before. So just thank you for being so talented. Oh my God. No, and thank you for opening up because I've learned through my personal journey too, like being honest about what we've gone through humanizes the experience and makes people feel way less alone. And so someone that they're listening to, like you that are like, oh, she's a lawyer.

What does she know? And it's like, oh, she's gone through this and she's survived it and she's on the other side of it. So thank you for sharing your personal experience because I know that that can't always be easy, but it truly does make a difference. And I know these women are going to be like, bow down, Carrie. Thank you, Carrie. You're amazing.

Thank you.