S9 E8: Trapped
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Something Was Wrong is intended for mature audiences. Episodes discuss topics that can be triggering, such as emotional, physical, and sexual violence, suicide, and murder. I am not a therapist or a doctor. If you're in need of support, please visit somethingwaswrong.com slash resources for a list of non-profit organizations that can help.

Some names have been changed for anonymity purposes. Opinions expressed by guests on the show are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of myself or AudioChuck. Resources and source material are linked in the episode notes. Thank you so much for listening. According to California state domestic violence laws, abuse is defined as physically hurting or trying to hurt someone intentionally or recklessly, sexual assault,

making someone reasonably afraid that they or someone else are about to be seriously hurt, or behavior like harassing, stalking, threatening, or hitting someone, disturbing someone's peace, or destroying someone's personal property. Other examples of interpersonal violence are described as kicking, shoving, or

pushing, pulling hair, throwing things, scaring or following you, or keeping you from freely coming or going. It can even include physical abuse of family pets.

A domestic violence restraining order, or DVRO, is defined in California as a court order that helps protect people from abuse or threats of abuse from someone they have a close relationship with. If you're a parent and your child is being abused, you can also file a restraining order on behalf of your children to protect them. If your child is 12 or older, they can file a restraining order of their own.

The National Coalition Against Domestic Violence reports one in three women and one in ten men have experienced some form of physical violence by an intimate partner. On average, United States domestic violence hotlines receive around 1,900 calls a day. Abusers' access to firearms increases the risk of intimate partner murder by at least five-fold.

65% of all murder-suicides involve an intimate partner, and 96% of victims of these crimes are female. In 2018, domestic violence in the United States accounted for 20% of all violent crime. I'm Tiffany Reese, and this is Something Was Wrong. I think you know me, you don't know.

August of 2020, Artie had filed charges against Kenji, alleging that he had threatened Darcy. He believes these claims may have stemmed from an argument he had with her, where he had gotten angry and frustrated about her continuing to date Artie. So Kenji decided to reach out to another one of Artie's other other girlfriends in search of answers. So the following day, I decided to try and reach out and contact Valerie.

Because I figured, well, she's probably in the same situation Danielle was in. She probably has no idea Artie's using a fake identity. She probably thinks maybe he's a doctor. Maybe he's got visa issues and that's why he can't register a car in his name. Who knows? I sent her some pictures of Artie's real IDs and let her know, hey, just to let you know, the man you're with isn't who he says he is. Here's his real name. Here's what we know about him. He's dangerous, so

I would try and get your car back from him and try and distance yourself with him if you can. Immediately, I get a call back from that number, from Valerie, and I think it's her, so I pick up, and when I answer, it's Artie.

And I didn't really say anything to him. I just kind of hung up and he kept trying to call back and call back. This Valerie girl, she was obviously under Artie's control also. He had access to her phone and was in control of it. So I hung up. I didn't hear back from Valerie after that at all. And obviously she didn't take the car away because he was still showing up with it constantly.

Later that month, Kenji also decided to contact Artie's other girlfriend, Barbara. She was the friend that texted Darcy a photo of Artie from the hospital. Darcy gives me her phone number one day and wants me to try and look up whatever I can about her. I give the correct number to Darcy, who calls Barbara and asks her what her relationship with Artie is. And

Barbara refuses to give Darcy any information. She's saying that's none of her business. She wants to stay out of it. She's not confirming or denying that she's also in a relationship with Artie. And keep in mind, you know, Artie is during this time is claiming that he's on vacation with Barbara in Utah. Of course, that pissed Artie off because he didn't want Darcy knowing anything about his relationship with Barbara. And

And apparently Barbara got really mad at Artie about this and it caused a huge fight on their trip. I mean, that was kind of entertaining to hear. Immediately after this, I get a bunch more text messages from Artie cussing me out, threatening me, all kinds of stuff because he suspects I'm the one that gave Darcy Barbara's contact information. And I did, but Artie's just pissed off. And then I guess when he gets back from his trip, he contacts Darcy's work and her boss and one of her coworkers. And

And he gets Darcy fired from her job. The same thing that he did to Tammy back in 2017. And we knew this was going to happen and we warned Darcy, but once again, she wouldn't listen to us.

We've all had jobs we don't necessarily like or people we work with that we don't necessarily like. And so, you know, you'd come home from work, you'd bitch to your significant other about, oh, so-and-so is such an asshole or whatever, blah, blah, blah. I had the worst day because of this person or that person. And that's what Darcy would do to Artie, right? She would come home from work and complain to him about her job. And he kind of kept all those little notes and all those stories. And then he took those and then went to her boss and her co-workers and said, hey, guess what?

your employee has told me all these personal things about you and all these rumors and all the stuff. And that pissed them off so much. They just said, we can't work with you anymore. We

You're fired. Well, she's pissed. I mean, she's pissed, but then Artie's gaslighted her to the point where he's convinced her that it was her fault because she's trying to say like, oh, you know, it was my fault for even talking about them behind their backs, blah, blah, blah. And it's like, no, no, no, no. That's not your fault. Everybody bitches about their job to their friends, husbands, wives, family, whoever. You weren't in the wrong here. So don't let him try and convince you otherwise.

In response to losing her job, Darcy decides she wants to move forward with filing a second request with courts for a domestic violence restraining order. After discovering this, Artie attacked her. ♪

So on August 26, Artie started a physical altercation with Darcy at her home in front of my kids on their first day of school, a.k.a. Zoom, because Artie wanted Darcy to drop the restraining order that she hadn't yet filed at the courthouse. So she had gotten the paperwork, filled it out as I read it to you, and was waffling back and forth whether to actually file it.

and Artie was pleading with her not to. So that morning, he tried to steal the paperwork from her and take it and destroy it and tried to leave with it, and that's when the altercation started. So I guess they started pushing each other, wrestling with each other in front of my kids. It spills out into the garage area where he's trying to leave. My old neighbor across the street witnesses this all and sees Darcy pretty much in a headlock, and he calls the police and tries to stop Artie from leaving, but he can't.

My neighbor's an older man. He's like 80 years old, so he's not going to be able to stop someone from leaving. I get a phone call immediately after this happens. Darcy's shaken up. She tells me she needs help. She doesn't know what to do. I show up and my kids are really shaken up by it. My son, I guess when this was all happening, he got so scared. He just closed his laptop on the first day of school and just refused to do any type of school that day. He was just terrified. This

His teacher emailed both of us and asked what happened, if we were having connectivity issues. I really wanted to send his teacher an email back and tell her exactly what happened, but I didn't. I don't know why. We just told her our son wasn't feeling good and needed the day off and he'd be back tomorrow.

But anyways, the police show up. By this time, they're well familiar with Marty and Darcy and this whole story. And the police officer, this particular officer, pretty much tells Darcy, look, the system for domestic violence is broken in California. You can go file a restraining order right now and press charges, domestic violence charges against him. But you got like a 20% chance of getting it granted. Maybe 30% if you get the right judge involved.

He basically said it's going to be a he said, she said thing. And unless you have video showing that he was the aggressor, he's going to turn this right back on you and say that you were the aggressor and no one's going to be able to prove anything and the charges are going to get dropped.

After more urging, Kenji convinced Darcy to move forward with the first step of filing her DVRO against Artie. And of course, in typical Artie fashion, the very next day he files his own restraining order against Darcy. Darcy once again doesn't follow through with the court hearing. Artie is able to beg and plead with her and convince her to drop the case.

So now it's early September of 2020. I decided to finally file my own restraining order against Artie, just based on all the harassing messages I've gotten from him over the months. For some reason, the judge denies my temporary restraining order. I don't know why. Somehow Artie was able to get a temporary restraining order granted against Darcy back in April with pretty much no evidence. I filed a restraining order with 14 pages of evidence and I couldn't get a temporary granted restraining

This is when I kind of realized that the police officer was right. The system is broken. So now we're in October of 2020. Darcy finds a new job again after being unemployed for a couple months because of Artie. And during the month, there's not a whole lot going on, but there were a few occasions where Darcy would have these side conversations with me, and I remember one of them...

where she told me about multiple incidents of abuse that occurred from Artie. And I remember she mentioned incidents where he would be over at the house and she would wake up being choked by him. And then she also recounted other incidents where he would slam her up against the wall or one time where they got in a physical altercation and he pinned her head to the ground with his knee and wouldn't let her get up.

I remember her telling me all these things. And again, I'm like, what are you doing? Are you going to put a stop to this? Are you going to call the police? And Darcy would always just kind of shrug her shoulders and be like, I'm trapped in this relationship. I don't know what to do. The police don't want to help me. They're useless. Even though the two restraining orders she had filed back in June and August, she never pursued. She basically dropped those. And I already had filed one against her. And I told her this. I told her that

She had to be careful because in the court's eyes, he was now painting her as the bad guy. They tried to reiterate to Darcy again, hey, you need to just go to the police. You need to block this guy, block all his numbers, block him on social media, cut off all contact with him. You need to file another restraining order and follow through with it this time. And Darcy tells me she's afraid to because she tells me she's been threatened that if she tries to leave the relationship that Artie had said he was going to hire a hitman to come after me and murder me.

So she felt like staying in the situation was her way of protecting me. But I've told her this from the beginning. I can protect myself from Artie. I don't have any concerns about him on that level. That's just a tactic for him to manipulate her and to keep her under his control, basically. After those conversations, I was hoping that Darcy would file another restraining order. She never did. And things kind of go quiet for a good chunk of the month.

That November, Kenji received an email from Danielle that simply read, Hey, check out this website. I click on the link and it's a website all about Artie. She's started this website where she's got pictures of Artie and a bunch of fun facts about Artie, basically outing him. And she had managed to secure the domain name with his real name on it. So if you Google Artie's identity or Google his name, it's like one of the first things that shows up on Google.

I called her right away and I thought it was the best thing ever. I felt like this was the only way we're going to get back at this guy. This is the only way we can stop him is by outing him because I already had been using his identity for 10 plus years at this point. Who knows how many women he's victimized in the LA area. And I felt like if the legal system wasn't going to stop him, if the police weren't going to stop him, that we'd have to let the internet and the rest of society stop him.

Here's Danielle.

I did change lawyers and found this new female lawyer. She's like a pit bull. She's amazing. In our first meeting, I remember her just being so outraged by this story. And she's like, you know, we really need to expose this guy. I

And I was like, yeah, I agree. I mean, I'm writing this book for that very reason, amongst helping victims like me understand why this happens and that it's not shameful. So she also suggested the website and I was like, could that be considered slander? She said, well, as long as you don't post private information and you're only posting facts, you're good. You can even post the domestic violence cases because they're public records.

Danielle took her lawyer's advice, found a web host that allows you to easily create your own website, and started posting.

I posted all the facts I had. I found the domain and I think I created like a, you can do like a confidential who is data where if they were to look up who the domain owner is, it would be confidential. So I did that. I posted all the information and everything and made my information private. But when you put your credit card information in, you have to obviously put in your billing address. So I did that.

In 2020, I was, I don't know, running errands and I get a text message on my real phone number, which he did not have. And he was like, I have your phone number and I have your address and I have all this information and the host of the website company handed it over to me.

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Danielle was alarmed when she got a text from Artie with her real phone number and address. At this point, I don't believe a word he says. I don't know anything. I mean, he was listing my true address, but I didn't know the full picture.

I pretended to be somebody else and played dumb. I'm like, who is this? And I got him to doubt that it was really me. And so I played along and I was like, well, if somebody's using my phone number, I want to know what did this website host like hand over to you?

And so he sent me the letter. So meanwhile, this exchange is happening back and forth. And I'm emailing the customer service team at the website host like, hey, you just gave out my contact information to my abuser. And I want to know how that happened. And they came back and they're like, we don't do that. We don't give out private information on our users. And then all of a sudden he messages me with

the letter with their name on it, giving them all the billing information on that website, you know, the domain name. And I was floored. So I send that to them and they were like, well, actually we had a subpoena. And I said, a subpoena?

I was like, can you please show me what this subpoena was? So they sent it to me and I forwarded it to my lawyer and she gave me some language, but I looked at it and I tracked down on LinkedIn, their chief counsel and their CEO's emails. I'm going to read to you this email I wrote.

Your legal attorney, and I gave her name, released my private information to a known abuser. As a CEO myself, and as the head of operations for a company, I thought you should be aware of what's happening.

I'm the victim of an abuser named Artie, whom I was with for nearly nine years because he threatened physical and gun violence towards my family. And he threatened to abduct our daughter. On July 2nd, 2020, I learned that my abuser was not the man I thought he was. He had created a completely fake identity. I learned his real name that day, along with the fact that he had multiple restraining orders against him.

I filed a restraining order and moved to a location where he wouldn't have my address or phone number. Unfortunately, the judge that day said if I felt threatened, I should have reported her sooner. Since her threats were all verbal, I had very little evidence against his abuse. I was left to fend for myself. I was advised by my lawyer and a law enforcement officer to expose his lies on a website so that he could be forced to stop using his fake identity.

If a new victim was to look him up, she would see that he is a manipulative abuser using a fake identity. I was careful to not list any private information of his. All information on the website is facts and public records. To have extra protection, I created a false name and paid to have my Whois data confidential.

Fortunately, I had to enter my real name and address for your site's billing. I figured this would remain secure and private. Imagine my surprise when my abuser texted my real phone number last week that he had my private phone number and address because you guys handed it over to him. You guys had a duty to investigate and reach out to me, but you didn't. Instead, your team handed my private information over to a known domestic violence abuser,

In parentheses, it's literally on the website. And a predator. Now I've been victimized all over again and will have to possibly move so that this person cannot find me. You should also be aware that when I reached out to your privacy support team, they provided me with the quote-unquote subpoena he sent over to you guys. It was fraudulent. And anyone with a law degree should know that.

I've attached for your reference. Just as a reminder, in a regular subpoena for business records, Artie must notify the consumer in advance before issuing the subpoena. He also could not have issued a subpoena without a court order or an attorney. I'm the consumer in this situation. I was not notified in any way.

anyway, nor was your company. There would be another form that is called a proof of service. Even more egregious though, is the fact that this attached subpoena that was sent to you by Artie is clearly just a form he downloaded online and is not a court order. There is no court seal or date on it.

nor is there a signature for proof of service at the bottom, which he is required to do. So you guys handed over my private information to a known abuser who sent a legally deficient subpoena.

And I cannot stress enough the damage this has caused to me and my daughter's physical safety and emotional well-being. Not to mention the money I will have to spend moving again, which is a lot for a single mother who works two jobs to afford by mounting legal fees against this monster.

I did not get a response back from them. Can you imagine what if he had come and I mean, I'm talking about it now because it's after the fact. And obviously, like he didn't do anything. But my parents were flipping out.

out. I was terrified. I remember being in the middle of the store and realizing he had my information and shaking and calling my best friend and being like, Oh my God, he has my address. What am I going to do? I don't know if I have to move now. Like, I mean, I was like, you know, full blown,

fight or flight mode. And so was the rest of my family. I had to really think long and hard about like, do I move again? And ultimately, I love my apartment. And it takes so much time, energy and money, which I did not have to move. And

And I did take precautions, obviously, like put up one of those little ring doorbell things that you can put over the peephole for apartments. And I'm very cautious. I carry pepper spray with me and I have to like constantly be aware of my surroundings. I mean, you should anyways, if you're a woman, but especially for me, even in a gated community, I never know if like somebody is going to walk in, they hold the door open for him.

I talked to my therapist about this. I still think he's fully capable of escalation. I think he's fully capable of killing somebody. And so does my therapist. So I take those precautions, but also I don't want him to win at the end of the day. And even if I had moved, he'd find that address too. So where does it end? Do I have to keep moving and uprooting my life just because he's unstable?

Obviously, my priority is my daughter and I take appropriate safety precautions with her. If I go to take out the trash, like I'll literally lock the door and carry my keys with me because who knows? It's such a like shitty way to live, but it's the only way I know how to keep safe and also fight that. October 20th, 2020, Darcy told Kenji that Artie had dropped his restraining order against her.

when she told me that I had my doubts about it. So after our conversation, I went and looked it up online. And according to the court, the restraining order was still open and there was a court date, I think that day or the next day. So I waited and I checked again the next morning to wait for the website to update again.

And sure enough, Artie had been granted a one-year restraining order against Darcy. The judge didn't say why in her notes. According to Darcy, Artie had lied about dropping the restraining order. He told her that there was no court date. There was no hearing. He had taken it off the calendar.

But apparently he had lied to her and then on his own volition showed up to court by himself that day and convinced the judge that this woman was abusing him and she granted him a one-year restraining order. I tried to tell Darcy how serious this was as far as if someone needs to do a background check on you for a new job or if you need to find an apartment or anything, this is going to come up and this is going to

impact her. And yeah, from the way it sounded, it sounded like Artie was still in the picture. They were still trying to work things out. The other thing I noticed when I read the restraining order, I didn't know this before, is that when you get a restraining order against somebody...

It really only goes one way. So Artie knew that if he got a restraining order against Darcy, he could continue to contact Darcy and violate his own restraining order. And there's no repercussions to him. Like he can't be arrested for that. But if Darcy responds and contacts him back, even a text message, that's considered a violation and she can be arrested for that. And Darcy didn't know that right away.

To me, it doesn't make sense legally. I feel like it should work both ways. But again, this just gave Artie even more control over Darcy and more control over this whole situation. There's no rationalizing with her. So I just had to be like, okay, she's going to do what she's going to do. And her friends and family had done the same thing the past few months. They were just done with it, done trying to help her.

So now November comes around and about halfway through November, the 11th or so, I get a call from Darcy that day to let me know that her and Artie had gotten into yet another physical altercation. And this time he had stolen both sets of car keys from her.

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Darcy called me to tell me this because the problem is that her car is still registered in my name because I had got it for her as a surprise a couple years prior. And so, you know, I didn't want her to know that I was getting her a new car. So I surprised her with it and I had to register it in my name only.

Kenji found this upsetting because without either set of keys, the car was unusable. The car had computerized, hands-free technology, so they were expensive to replace. Around $1,400 for a new set. And Darcy didn't have $1,400. And since the car was in my name, and it's a lease, by the way, I'd be responsible for it.

it. The lease is going to be up later this year, so you can't just return the car with no keys. Obviously, someone's going to have to pay for it, replace the keys, and then return the car with the keys. I'm upset about this. I'm pissed off because Darcy called the police to try and file a police report. They gave her the runaround and told her, oh, you know, since this guy's been living with you for more than 30 days, your car keys are considered community property, so there's nothing they can do about it. That's pretty much what they told her.

So Darcy had to just try and find a way to either get her keys back or she was going to have to pay the $1,400 to replace them. Frustrated, Kenji decided to try and reach out to Artie's other girlfriend, Valerie, to see if she might be able to convince him to return the car keys.

I decided to reach out to Valerie via her sister, because if you recall, I wasn't able to get a hold of Valerie directly the last time. Artie was in control of her phone, and he was the one intercepting her calls. So I found Valerie's sister on Facebook and sent her a message explaining the situation and asking her if she would be willing to talk or if she could get in touch with Valerie for me and let her know what was going on.

And unfortunately, I never received a response from her sister. So I waited a bit and then I decided to just try and reach out to Valerie directly. I sent her a text message saying, Hey, my name is so-and-so. I think Artie has my ex-wife's car keys. Just wondering if you've seen them at your place because I know he lives with you or spends a lot of time with you. If you could help me get them back, no questions asked.

All I want is the keys back and I don't care about anything else. I just don't want to have to waste $1,400 replacing these keys. I also at the same time sent a text message to Barbara, his other girlfriend, explaining the same exact message. And she happened to respond right away and basically said, "Hey, I'm sorry to hear that, but I just want to be left out of this situation. I don't want anything to do with all this drama. Good luck."

So later that evening, I actually receive a response from Valerie who... I can read you the text message. It says, I went to the police and provided them everything you have sent me through text. You are now contacting my family. I will file charges and so will they if you continue to disturb me. I am going to take a restraining order out against you. Stop disturbing my life. Also must be embarrassing for your children to have parents like you.

And that came from Valerie's phone. And just reading the message back right now, it's very clear that this is Artie talking. Because what normal, rational person talks like that when you're just asking about car keys? That's totally his MO. So I figured at this point, well, I'm not going to get the car keys back, but I try it at least.

The next day, Darcy told Kenji that she was going to try one last time to see if she could get her car keys back from Artie, and she convinced him to give her a ride home from work.

I guess after he dropped her off, he came in and hung out with her that night. And while he was there, you know, I guess he fell asleep on the couch. Darcy decided to finally, after all these months, she finally decided to go through Artie's phone to kind of see if there's any truth to these rumors about Barbara and Valerie.

She wanted to go through his phone and confirm these things for herself. And sure enough, she goes through his phone. She sees a bunch of messages from Valerie saying, you know, I love you. You know, hey, baby, happy anniversary. Just all kinds of lovey-dovey stuff. Basically the same things I had found in Darcy's phone the year prior.

Darcy was finding on Artie's phone from this other woman. She was furious, but she didn't confront Artie right away. She called one of her friends and said, hey, I just found out that he's got this other woman and he's obviously in a relationship with her. What should I do? I

Her friend tells her to call the police because that's exactly what Artie would do if the situation was flipped. So Darcy's friend convinces her to call the police. So she calls them and tells them, hey, I've got this guy here. He's got this restraining order against me. And...

by the way, he's stolen my car keys. Can you please come do something about it? They come out, Artie gets woken up by the police there. He freaks out. He, I guess, runs into the garage, throws one of her keys like in the back of her garage somewhere and then tells the police, oh, I only have the one key.

I threw it in her garage. She can go get it. I don't have the other one. It's lost. And then the police basically tell Darcy the same thing they told her the other day, which is the keys are community property. We can't do anything about the other one that's lost. You got the one back. The

They basically tell her, your only recourse is to file a restraining order at this point. And they just let Artie leave. They don't really do anything to stop them. A week later, a few days before Thanksgiving, Kenji had a conversation with one of Darcy's best friends who tells him a shocking story about her own run-in with Artie.

Darcy and her friend were hanging out, drinking at their place late one night. And while they were hanging out, Artie was blowing up Darcy's phone, asking to come by, wanting to talk to Darcy. And Darcy was pretty much blowing him off. Eventually, Artie had called so many times, Darcy finally picked up and...

And Artie was furious and he was threatening to have Darcy fired from her job. He was threatening to try to get me fired from my job again. And then apparently, I don't know, 20 minutes later or so, he just shows up at Darcy's place while her and her friend are there. Darcy's friend wants nothing to do with Artie, so she decides to leave. Unfortunately, she had been drinking. And so Artie pulls a fast one and...

and follows her friend out the door, gets into his car, and follows her down the street and calls the police and tries to have Darcy's friend arrested for a DUI because he knew that she'd been drinking and she was driving home. And then after that incident, I guess that's when Darcy's friend, you know, one of her really close friends just had to cut her off completely because Darcy wasn't doing anything to stop this guy. And now this guy was trying to come after her and ruin her life. And it's just a messed up situation.

I don't know if he actually called the police, but he followed her out apparently and tried to follow her home and claimed he was on the phone with the police following her to have her arrested. So after that incident with the car keys, things are quiet for a few weeks until early December 2021.

when I get a message from Darcy one night basically telling me that Artie had hacked into one of my social media accounts and she said hey have you googled yourself lately and I said no why would I need to and she said go take a look and one of the results on the first page is one of my social media accounts and

And yeah, turns out Artie had hacked into it and posted a bunch of slanderous and just nasty things about me on this particular social media account under my biography section. And when I found this, I was furious. So I tried to log into the account and I couldn't because he had changed both the email and the password associated with

So I had to go through this lengthy process with the company to prove my identity to them so they could release the account back to me and then clean up all the mess he had made on it. He had even sent like a private message to some random person I didn't know with a bunch of defaming and slanderous remarks in there.

I went through that whole process and I reached out to a detective who Danielle had been working with in the months prior, basically asking him what I could do about this. And he pretty much admitted, well, there's not much you can do because first of all, you'd have to prove that he was the one who actually hacked into your account. And even if I could provide all the proof necessary, I mean...

It would just end up being a misdemeanor charge, which would result in pretty much a slap on Artie's wrist. And he was basically saying the police department wasn't going to have a detective go and investigate all this just for a misdemeanor, which made sense to me. But it was still just infuriating that someone can do this and just get away with it. Right. Just like he had with everything else so far.

Okay, so a few days later, I'm still pissed about him hacking into my social media. And Darcy tells me yet again that there was another physical altercation with Artie. She didn't tell me the details this time, but she mentioned to me that Artie was pissed about this website that he had found out about that was created about him. And he thought that I did it. So...

Darcy told me that he was gonna file a lawsuit against me about the website and try and sue me for damages. I played dumb and I was like, "What website are you talking about? I don't know anything about a website." Technically, I hadn't set up the website. I knew about it, but I hadn't set it up.

but Artie was going to claim that I did it and Darcy was telling me that he had evidence that I did it, which I knew was a bunch of crap. He claimed to have subpoenaed the company and saw my name attached to the website, which wasn't true at all. So I knew he was bluffing at this point to try and get Darcy to do something that he wanted her to do, again, as a method of control. And Darcy also told me that as part of his lawsuit, he

was saying that I had posted a naked picture of him on that website, which Darcy kind of doubted. She was like, yeah, it looked like he just photoshopped a naked picture of himself onto a screenshot of the website. But he was going to try and use that to claim that this was like some type of revenge porn thing. We had created this website to slander him and post naked pictures of him or whatever. Yeah.

Again, not true. He is still around the kids, according to a couple of her friends, even though she told me he wasn't going to be around the kids. He still was. So Christmas Eve, I'm hanging out at the house with my kids. We're having a good time. And I get a knock on my door. And I look through the doorbell camera and there's a guy who

carrying a couple of like small wrapped presents and I can hear him through my camera saying, oh, special delivery for Mr. Kenji and his kids. I have a special Christmas delivery. I immediately knew right away, okay, this guy, you know, I've never seen this guy before. I don't know who he is. I don't know why he would be bringing wrapped presents for me and my kids. That's next time on the season nine finale of Something Was Wrong. ♪

Something Was Wrong is an Audiochuck original. Thank you so much to our team. Executive Producer, Ashley Flowers. Coordinating Producer, Mike McDonald. Mixing and Mastering by Kyle O'Connor. Created, reported, and hosted by me, Tiffany Reese. Our theme song was originally composed by Gladrags, covered this season by Midwest Originals.

So what do you think, Chuck? Do you approve? If you like Something Was Wrong, you can listen early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Prime members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. Before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a short survey at wondery.com slash survey.

Scammers are best known for living the high life until they're forced to trade it all in for handcuffs and an orange jumpsuit once they're finally caught. I'm Sachi Cole. And I'm Sarah Hagee. And we're the host of Scamfluencers, a weekly podcast from Wondery that takes you along the twists and turns of some of the most infamous scams of all time, the impact on victims, and what's left once the facade falls away.

We've covered stories like a Shark Tank certified entrepreneur who left the show with an investment but soon faced mounting bills, an active lawsuit filed by Larry King, and no real product to push. He then began to prey on vulnerable women instead, selling the idea of a future together while stealing from them behind their backs.

To the infamous scams of Real Housewives stars like Teresa Giudice, what should have proven to be a major downfall only seemed to solidify her place in the Real Housewives Hall of Fame. Follow Scamfluencers on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to Scamfluencers early and ad-free right now on Wondery+.