On her myriad template-driven, free hosted blogs and websites, Noel Bednaz likes to call me the stalker. Lately, she can't even say my first name without preceding it with stalker. So let's look at the facts, shall we?
I had never heard of Noel Bednaz, until she joined my Lennon Discussion list, Lennono@yahoogroups.com. By that time the list had been running without problems for a number of years, and people were having a good time, and learning a lot. She was just another member, out of hundreds.
Then, in early April 2001, she and another member, a lady named Heidi, began talking about cats. As list owner/moderator, one of my functions was to keep the list on topic. Still, I let it slide for five days, as the list was pretty quiet at the time. After all, what harm could it do? Well, I soon found out.
Yahoogroups had an option to receive list posts in a digest form, that is, to receive one email containing twenty-five posts, as opposed to twenty-five separate emails. I soon began receiving complaints from those members who had opted for digest, as they were opening the digests and reading post after post about cats, without any Lennon content.
So, fulfilling my duties as moderator, I asked Noel and Heidi to please take the discussion off-list. This was standard practice for any discussion list. Feel free to discuss anything, but stay on topic on the list. I assumed they would just continue their discussion via personal email, and all would be well.
Heidi apologized profusely. She told me how sorry she was, how she never intended to cause harm, and so on... but Noel, well Noel argued the point. "I have freedom of speech." "I'll talk about anything I want." That's fine, but not on my list, and I told her so. I told her that the list was not a democracy, it was a benevolent dictatorship. I own it, I make the rules. Noel, not understanding the term "benevolent dictatorship," saw only 'dictatorship,' and started calling me a fascist and comparing me to Hitler.
All of this is well documented in the page linked above.
So, I warned her several times, and when she showed no sign of following the list rules, I banned her. The result? She declared war - on me, and on several list members who had expressed support of me and the policies I enforced. All of us began receiving abusive emails and eCards, and were signed up to unwanted newsletters, mostly dealing with pornography or homosexuality. I attempted to track her IP address, but she was using the first of many anonymous emailers, which are usually hosted in third world countries as they are illegal in the US and the EU.
This went on for some time, and then I googled her, and found that before me, she had done the same thing to Dr. Ken Granderson, who ran Boston Blacks Online and Blackfacts. I contacted Dr. Granderson, who had saved all correspondence between himself and his groups, and Noel. He kindly agreed to forward everything to me. It was at that point that I began to do what every law enforcement agency suggests - keep all evidence, organize it well. So I built the first incarnation of this website. I've redesigned it several times as I became more proficient in building websites.
Soon, as her abuse continued, more was added to the ever-growing site. I was then contacted by other people who had found the site through search engines. Those are the people in the Other victims of Noel Bednaz tell their stories section. All of those people contacted me. I had never heard of them until they did. All of those people volunteered their stories and the emails, etc. to back them up, as all of those people had also been stalked by Noel Bednaz. There are six people listed in that section, two above it, and myself. Nine people stalked by Noel Bednaz - all of whom have been called stalkers by Noel Bednaz.
If you go to any website about the subject of Internet Harassment/Cyberstalking, it will say that a Stalkers first line of defense is to turn the tables - to claim that the victims are the actual stalkers, and he/she is innocent and being persecuted by "all these people who are working together." They call them minions, collaborators, someone's 'army of trolls.'
So on one side we have a single person who has built numerous libelous websites against all the people she calls stalkers - not one of them providing any sort of evidence whatsoever. Nothing. And on the other side, nine people who say Noel is the Stalker and have kept all of the evidence, which is now displayed on the site. Nine people who never heard of each other until they were attacked by Noel Bednaz, and have had no communication (at least with me) since providing their info to me.
Are these people the only victims of Noel Bednaz? No, not by a long shot. I know of at least three more victims, whom I have been unable to reach. So far. I had a contact form on the website, but Noel Bednaz spammed the hell out of it, sometimes sending the same email thousands of times. See the 2012 - Present section of the emails page. Because of that the best way to contact me is to leave a comment anywhere on this blog. That comment will provide me with your email address (which no one will see). Just ask me to email you.
To be continued in pt. 2...
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