Digital Predators | When the Internet Becomes a Weapon
In the silent glow of our screens, a predator needs no mask or shadowed alley—just a keyboard, anonymity, and a vulnerable target. They spin vicious tales, lurk in digital shadows, and feign superiority, forcing victims to cower in fear, frantically safeguard private details, and absorb endless emotional barrages. Like a child groomed by a pedophile shifting from fantasy to nightmare, cyberstalking victims face the chilling pivot from online ridicule and exposure to tangible harm. Take Robert John Bardo’s three-year obsession with actress Rebecca Schaeffer: he exploited public records to track her, culminating in her 1989 murder. This mirrors modern cases, such as Hilary Elizabeth Sargent’s alleged orchestration of the Anonymous Comrade Collective, where online networks blurred into real-world intimidation through coordinated doxxing. The takeaway: a “harmless” post is often the spark; digital psychological warfare ignites the path to physical violation.
I never planned to share my story. But after years of endurance—harassment as daily routine, lies as currency, the internet as a weapon trained on my sanity—silence feels like complicity. I’m offering this personal account not for pity, but for raw clarity. This is cyberstalking unfiltered: not Hollywood drama, but a slow, corrosive grind of invasions from strangers behind screens, eroding lives pixel by pixel. Unlike televised tropes, it echoes the Sargent investigation, where one journalist’s “collective” waged proxy wars, turning ideology into targeted erosion.
The names I’m about to use are real. The behavior is documented. And the law, as it currently stands, is supposed to protect people from exactly this kind of calculated, obsessive cruelty. But it rarely does — because most people, even lawmakers, still underestimate the psychological violence of a digital predator.
In discussion with law enforcement over a year ago, I stated: “I’ve never met Ashley Jo Barnum—a 43-year-old stalker from the other side of the country. Yet she constructed her entire online persona around me, distorting my every action into spectacle. For years, she’s surveilled, mocked, and invented my life details, enlisting others, doxxing private info, and exploiting my trauma—and my daughters’ victimization—for humiliation. Buying a home? She hailed it as scandal. On camera, her faux sympathy masks glee in my suffering—a masterpiece of obsession cloaked as critique.” This isn’t hyperbole; it’s the blueprint of fixation, akin to Sargent’s public facade enabling hidden coordination.
Exposing this is agonizing: illuminating a figure who thrives in shadows, reliving the torment my family endures for championing justice. Barnum lacks expertise yet brands my 2020 election affidavit fraudulent—despite validations, including a recent Venezuelan official’s corroboration and the fact that it is submitted into the record. What qualifies her? A few hundred views as a “big platform”? Pure delusion. “Ignore her,” many say—but how, when it shatters familial bonds, assaults siblings and children, and stalks us all? Like Sargent dismissing scrutiny as paranoia while proxies amplified harm, this “advice” ignores escalation: silence fuels real-world fallout.
Most miss digital violence’s prelude—a phased escalation echoing physical predators. It ignites with fixation, advances to surveillance, and culminates in orchestration. Cyberstalkers don’t impulsively strike; they strategize, planting digital landmines, hoarding data, and probing with micro-humiliations to gauge fear or retreat. Each post, fabrication, or “exposure” rehearses domination, often spilling offline. Per stalking expert Dr. Kris Mohandie, these stages—scouting, approach, siege—mirror Sargent’s Collective: proxies tested doxxes, building to federal scrutiny.
“Ignore the trolls” is perilously obsolete. Trolls chase reactions; digital predators crave collapse. Trolls provoke for laughs; predators endure silence, adapting and intensifying. Measurable difference: trolls fade without fuel; predators re-strategize. This persistence screams stalking, not debate. In Sargent’s network, ignored posts escalated to leaks—proof of the predator’s signature.
Law enforcement overlooks this phase, veiled in screens and “speech.” Yet predators cultivate ecosystems: echo-chamber followers, delusion-reinforcing commenters, algorithms amplifying cruelty. An online spark metastasizes—like cancer from one cell—into risks: shared addresses, sabotaged jobs, physical threats. Sargent’s validation loop via retweets fueled real probes; platforms’ outrage engines turn echoes into avalanches.
The legislative void: failing to criminalize intent and pattern pre-impact. Prosecutions chase aftermath—threats, assaults, deaths—ignoring the psychological prelude. In our era, words strike first. Dismissing sustained cruelty as “noise” blinds us to violence’s harbingers. DOJ data: 80% of physical stalkings originate online, yet proactive enforcement lags, as in Sargent’s unchecked buildup.
18 U.S.C. § 2261A exists to halt violence pre-screen escape. No need for corpses, shattered doors, or bloodied reports—it targets the pattern: repeated digital acts to intimidate or torment. Designed as a shield when words weaponize, it’s become a tombstone, invoked post-tragedy. U.S. v. Cassidy convicted on tweets alone; Sargent-like cases linger, shield turned relic.
So why has Ashley Jo Barnum evaded accountability? Why, after years of documented harassment, exposure of personal information, and recruitment of others to join her campaign, has law enforcement not intervened? The answer lies in the institutional disconnect between law and literacy. The law exists, but most officers, prosecutors, and even judges do not understand how to interpret digital conduct as pre-crime behavior. They still treat the internet as commentary, not as a battlefield. Though in my case, she is part of a network and simply out of ego took the stand. Considering Haspert’s “advocation” and actions under the radar while working for the pedophile and now dead AG of North Dakota she soothes Ashley’s concerns with “I know people. I know the law”. Echoes Sargent’s facade: public “advocacy” masking shadows, like the recently indicted Illinois Congressional Candidate’s crimes I showcased (like I am now).
Social media platforms? Complicit enablers, cloaked in “neutrality.” Verified badges arm abusers; algorithms reward outrage loops. Moderators zap isolated posts but blind to patterns—the criminal core under § 2261A. ’s badge empowered Barnum, as platforms fueled Sargent’s proxies. Statute sans enforcement? Platforms profit from forbidden fire.
Every Barnum lie, doxx, or contempt-dripping “sympathy” video adds to a felony chain demanding federal scrutiny. Each spread or recruit lengthens it; systemic silence emboldens. Digital cruelty births distributed violence: one spawns legions, speech as alibi. Sargent spawned proxies; Barnum recruits—chain ignored, threat multiplied.
Operational law would strike at fixation’s dawn: first leaked identifier, first weaponized child trauma. But justice gauges bruises, not breakdowns—PTSD rivaling physical abuse (Pathé et al.). Train institutions: psychological predation precedes punches. Else, § 2261A mocks victims, promise unkept. Sargent’s fixation festered pre-exposure; early action could prevent.
Log into X, scroll : post after post harasses, sobriety boasted amid venom. How claim clarity while drowning in disdain for a stranger? Hypocrisy hallmarks predators—reformed in words, toxic in deeds, like Sargent’s “anti-fascist” veil over hate.
Verified on X, Barnum’s details flood “background check” sites—mostly inaccurate, save arrest records. Irony: a badge lends legitimacy to legion cruelty, echoing Sargent’s public cred enabling private networks.
Understanding 18 U.S.C. § 2261A and Its Application to the Described Behavior
X’s own Grok AI dissected : it fits 18 U.S.C. § 2261A—the Violence Against Women Act amendment targeting digital patterns pre-harm. Core elements: (1) Electronic service (e.g., X); (2) Repeated acts; (3) Intent/effect causing distress or fear. No violence required—prevention focus. Cases like U.S. v. Cassidy (tweets alone) and U.S. v. Sayer uphold pattern-based convictions. Barnum’s years-long fixation aligns: exclusive targeting, proxy incitement. Not “speech”—unprotected threats (Virginia v. Black). Report via FBI tips; evidence timelines key. Interstate? Easy. Public account? No anonymity shield. Exists for this: obsession as danger precursor. Sargent’s network drew similar scrutiny—spotty enforcement the gap.
18 U.S.C. § 2261A, part of the Violence Against Women Act (as amended), criminalizes cyberstalking and stalking through electronic means. It was indeed enacted to address digital harassment before it escalates to physical harm, focusing on patterns of behavior that weaponize online communication. The statute doesn’t require physical violence or immediate threats; it targets the “course of conduct” itself when it’s intended to harass, intimidate, or cause substantial emotional distress—and when it reasonably does so. Penalties can include up to 5 years in prison, fines, or both, and it’s enforceable by federal authorities like the .
To break it down, the law has three core elements (paraphrased from the statute for clarity):
- Use of an Electronic Communication Service: This includes any interactive computer service, like social media platforms (e.g., X, formerly Twitter).
- A Course of Conduct: At least two separate acts (e.g., posts, messages) that show a pattern directed at a specific person.
- Intent and Effect: The conduct must be done with the intent to kill, injure, harass, intimidate, or cause substantial emotional distress to that person. Additionally, it must cause a reasonable person (or the actual victim) to experience fear of death, serious bodily injury, or substantial emotional distress.
The law emphasizes prevention: it’s a “shield” for ongoing digital torment, not just a postmortem tool. Enforcement has been spotty—often reactive after incidents like doxxing leading to real-world attacks—but cases like U.S. v. Cassidy(2008) and U.S. v. Sayer (2013) show courts upholding convictions based solely on persistent online targeting without physical escalation.
Barnum evades via literacy voids: digital as “battlefield” misunderstood. Platforms profit from patterns they ignore. Each act triggers review—silence emboldens distributed hate. Operational § 2261A intervenes early; bruises-over-breakdowns fails us. Teach predation’s psychology: first act of crime. Else, paper promise, practical mockery.
Based on the description of the profile—years of exclusive posts targeting me (Terpsehore Maras)—this behavior aligns with § 2261A’s prohibitions. Here’s a step-by-step mapping (note: this is not legal advice; a full investigation by law enforcement would be needed to confirm intent and impact):
Why This Isn’t Just “Free Speech”
Critics argue § 2261A risks chilling expression, but courts balance it with First Amendment limits: protected speech is general opinion (e.g., public criticism of a celebrity), not personalized, relentless attacks. A profile solely dedicated to one person’s torment crosses into unprotected “true threats” or fighting words (Virginia v. Black, 2003). Posts that encourage others to harass Maras, further violate § 2261A(2) on incitement especially in spaces and through MSG/DMs.
If you are a victim?
Victims can file with the FBI () or local police; X’s reporting tools flag harassment, but federal law overrides platform inaction. X has not done anything concrete to date but law enforcement has simply been observing. Evidence gathering is key such as screenshots, timelines of posts, and witness statements to build a case. No “body count” needed— the pattern is the crime. In this case of me (Maras) it is really done through OSINT and the FBI that are monitoring all my communications anyway. There are challenges that this statute provides to be overcome, prosecution requires proving interstate commerce (easy for X) and overcoming “anonymous” accounts, but is public therefore this challenge is not an issue.
This statute exists precisely for scenarios like this: digital obsession as a precursor to danger. For those in similar situations like myself seeking legal counsel (e.g., via RAINN or a cyber civil rights group) is crucial for protection orders or takedowns.
So why has Ashley Jo Barnum evaded accountability? Why, after years of documented harassment, exposure of personal information, and recruitment of others to join her campaign, has law enforcement not intervened? The answer lies in the institutional disconnect between law and literacy. The law exists, but most officers, prosecutors, and even judges do not understand how to interpret digital conduct as pre-crime behavior. They still treat the internet as commentary, not as a battlefield.
Social media platforms, meanwhile, have become unwitting accomplices. They hide behind the language of “neutrality,” allowing verified users to weaponize their systems while algorithms reward outrage and repetition. Their moderation teams remove single posts but ignore the pattern — the very pattern that 18 U.S.C. § 2261A defines as criminal. What good is a statute if platforms profit from the conduct it forbids?
Each time Ms. Barnum publishes a lie, doxxes a document, or feigns sympathy on video while dripping contempt, she commits another act in a series that should, by law, trigger federal review. Each time her content spreads or recruits others, she extends that series — and the silence of the system emboldens her. What begins as digital cruelty evolves into a kind of distributed violence — one perpetrator spawning many, all justified under the banner of speech.
If this law were truly operational, intervention would occur at the first sign of sustained fixation — the first time a stranger posts your personal identifiers, the first time your child’s trauma becomes their content. But enforcement fails because the machinery of justice still measures harm in bruises, not in breakdowns. Until we teach our legal institutions that psychological predation is the first act of physical crime, 18 U.S.C. § 2261A will remain a promise on paper and a mockery in practice.
Unchecked fixation metastasizes. Solo instigators recruit swiftly: alternate personas lure “helpers” for data, filming, gossip-as-proof. One vendetta becomes hate syndicate, activism illusion. Sargent’s Collective: proxies under “anti-fascist” banner coordinated intimidation—my mirror, exceeded.
§ 2261A(2) demands intervention here: bans inciting harassment via electronics. Enforcement trails tech; networks hide in complexity, noise until news. Sargent’s DM incitement sparked interest—no swift strike.
In my case, the harassment began in one region and radiated outward as I exposed local government corruption and systemic abuse. Those I exposed were not the only ones threatened by my voice; opportunists joined in, inventing their own narratives and turning defamation into a digital economy. The more lies they spread, the more engagement they earned. It is a cruel irony that the very platforms meant to connect us have become incubators of collective stalking—where personal data is currency and cruelty is a group project.
From the Sargent Investigation to a Broader Pattern
In December 2022, Justice Report published an investigation identifying journalist Hilary Elizabeth Sargent as the person behind the online network known as the Anonymous Comrade Collective (). According to the reporting, the collective operated through a lattice of alternate accounts that gathered personal data, coordinated doxxing, and recruited anonymous proxies under an “anti-fascist” banner. These tactics blurred the line between activism and targeted harassment and, according to public records, drew the attention of federal investigators reviewing potential violations of 18 U.S.C. § 2261A, the federal cyberstalking statute. The Sargent case became a touchstone for understanding how ideology can mask digital predation: public justification, private control, and coordinated intimidation.
My targeting mirrors—exceeds—Sargent’s: Barnum has a verified hub, 100+ auxiliaries recycling defamation, automating sabotage via encrypted tools. Offline: home confrontation, dog poisoning. Metastasizes real-world, per Mullen, Pathé & Purcell (2009): malignant narcissism (cruelty as righteousness), projection (accuse what you do), co-narcissistic dyads (leader-amplifier delusions).
Digital predators share architecture: fixation as control quest, validation addiction. Malignant narcissism: envy as outrage, hostility as “truth.” Co-dyads intensify—leader purposes, follower belongs. Empathy evaporates; victims experimented on, boundaries tested, recruits conditioned. Not “mean”—parasitic attention economy: outrage currency, reaction reward, domination high. Sargent projected her tactics; Barnum mirrors.
Psychologically, the pattern reflects the same dynamics that scholars such as Mullen, Pathé & Purcell (2009) and Sheridan & Grant (2007) identified in long-term stalking:
– Malignant narcissism, which recasts cruelty as righteousness;
– Projection, where the perpetrator accuses the victim of the very behavior they commit; and
– Co-narcissistic dyads, leader–amplifier pairs that feed each other’s delusions of moral authority.
Violence starts mental, amplified digitally. Posts normalize cruelty, desensitize followers, caricature victims as “deserving.” Offline leaks: jobs lost, isolation enforced—psychological erasure. Internet: collective mirror, best and worst. “Just online”? Now reality—digitized lives exploitable. Minimize? Licenses destruction. Sargent normalized doxx, primed risks; election cycles (2016-2020) turned viral lies to riots. Structural: algorithms anger-engage. § 2261A recognizes interstate harassment causing distress—needs forensics training, platform cooperation. Outrage rewards poison ecosystems.
The Psychology Behind Digital Predation
The kind of people who orchestrate long-term online harassment usually share a recognisable psychological architecture. They begin with fixation—a belief that the target represents something they must control, expose, or destroy. This fixation becomes a self-reinforcing loop: every post, every reaction from the victim or audience delivers a surge of validation. Over time, that validation turns into addiction.
Most digital predators display traits common to malignant narcissism or obsessive-compulsive control behavior. They lack genuine empathy, experience envy as moral outrage, and rewrite their hostility as righteousness. Publicly, they frame their abuse as “truth-telling” or “accountability.” Privately, they are driven by feelings of inadequacy and displacement. They convince themselves that by dismantling another person, they’re restoring order to their own chaos.
When these personalities find each other online, the dynamic intensifies. One assumes the role of the leader or moral crusader, the other becomes the enforcer or amplifier. Each feeds the other’s pathology. The leader offers purpose; the follower gains belonging. Together they form what psychologists call a co-narcissistic dyad—a pairing that externalizes blame and justifies cruelty as justice.
In this ecosystem, empathy erodes completely. They study their victim like a subject in an experiment, testing boundaries, escalating exposure, recruiting others for affirmation. What looks like gossip is actually behavioral conditioning—a social rehearsal for persecution.
Digital predators aren’t just “mean people online.” They are participants in a parasitic economy of attention. Their emotional currency is outrage, their reward is reaction, and their ultimate high is evidence that they still control their target’s reality.
How Pathology Becomes Pattern
When pathological personalities migrate online, their behavior follows a predictable trajectory. What begins as personal obsession transforms into a carefully orchestrated campaign of control — one that thrives on the illusion of moral purpose. The predator doesn’t see themselves as cruel; they see themselves as righteous. In their mind, they are not harassing a person — they are “exposing” evil, “holding someone accountable,” or “protecting the public.” This is the moral-savior complex, one of the most dangerous psychological distortions in the digital era.
This mindset gives them permission to do anything. They justify lies as “research,” invasion as “transparency,” and defamation as “truth.” Every ethical line becomes negotiable if it serves their “cause.” The tragedy is that there is no cause — only a collapsing sense of identity disguised as virtue. The internet rewards them with likes, shares, and followers, reinforcing the delusion that their obsession is activism.
Another hallmark of digital predation is projection — the psychological defense mechanism where the abuser accuses the victim of the very behavior they themselves are committing. If they are deceitful, they call the victim a liar. If they are obsessed, they label the victim a stalker. Projection is their shield and their weapon: it preemptively inverts guilt, sowing confusion among bystanders who mistake loudness for legitimacy.
Then comes impersonation and mirroring. Digital predators often adopt the language, mannerisms, or content of their target to appear informed or credible. They hijack narratives, quote selectively, and build entire personas around the person they fixate on. This is a psychological tactic — identity usurpation — designed to blur lines between truth and fiction until the audience can no longer tell the difference.
Once their identity is secured and their audience conditioned, the predator builds an echo chamber. They recruit others by appealing to emotion — outrage, pity, or fear — and convert them into enforcers. These recruits become extensions of the predator’s will, performing harassment by proxy while believing they are part of a greater moral mission. Psychologists refer to this as narcissistic supply through group validation. In digital ecosystems, it’s how one individual’s delusion becomes a collective act of persecution.
What the outside world sees as petty online drama is, in fact, a closed psychological system — a hierarchy built on obsession, projection, and control. Every tweet, video, or post is a ritual reaffirming power over the target. The digital predator’s goal isn’t discourse; it’s domination. And as long as society continues to trivialize this behavior as “trolling,” we will fail to see it for what it is: the digital rehearsal for real-world violence.
The Digital Rehearsal for Violence
Every physical act of violence begins in the mind. But in the digital age, that mind now has a platform — one that never sleeps, never forgets, and never stops amplifying. What used to be whispered in private is now broadcast to thousands. The online arena has become the new staging ground for real-world harm — the rehearsal space where violence learns its lines.
When a predator obsesses online, they are not just typing; they are training. Every post that distorts, humiliates, or dehumanizes the target lowers the social threshold for harm. They normalize cruelty, desensitize followers, and prime bystanders to see the victim not as a person, but as a caricature — a public effigy that “deserves” punishment. By the time the violence manifests offline, the emotional groundwork has already been laid. The audience has been conditioned to cheer, not intervene.
In a world where everything is digitized — communication, reputation, identity, livelihood — online predation no longer ends at the screen. It leaks into every corner of a person’s existence. Employers read the lies, friends hesitate, family members grow anxious. The target becomes isolated, discredited, and psychologically cornered — exactly where the predator wants them. This is psychological murder in slow motion: the systematic erasure of safety, credibility, and belonging through digital means.
The internet was once imagined as humanity’s collective library. It has become, instead, humanity’s collective mirror — reflecting our best and worst impulses in equal measure. When people say, “It’s just online,” they fail to see that online is the world now. Our data, our faces, our thoughts, our homes — all digitized, all traceable, all exploitable. The digital realm isn’t separate from reality; it is reality. And this is why understanding the psychology of digital predators isn’t optional — it’s urgent.
Because if we continue to minimize online cruelty, we will continue to license real-world destruction. If we keep treating cyberstalking as a nuisance instead of a crime, we will keep burying victims whose only mistake was underestimating the reach of obsession. Every digital predator rehearses in plain sight, and every ignored post, every shrugged-off threat, is an audience that applauds their performance.
Until we treat the digital world with the gravity it deserves — as the primary theater of modern violence — we will keep losing battles that were visible all along. The violence doesn’t begin when the weapon is raised. It begins when a post is made.
From Screens to Streets: When Digital Warfare Becomes Real
What begins as an online narrative rarely stays there. Once a digital crowd convinces itself that a target is corrupt, dangerous, or inhuman, violence no longer feels like violence—it feels like duty. History has shown this repeatedly: when social-media outrage becomes an identity, the mob moves from keyboards to streets.
The same dynamic has played out in politics at every level, most visibly in the United States during and after the 2016 and 2020 election cycles. Politicians, journalists, and citizens alike became targets of sprawling digital campaigns that blurred fact and fiction. False or exaggerated stories went viral, outrage became performance, and isolated digital acts evolved into real-world threats, assaults, and even riots. The lesson is not partisan—it’s structural. When the digital sphere rewards hostility, every public figure can be turned into an effigy.
Cyberstalking and political mobbing are built on the same psychological scaffolding: dehumanization, moral righteousness, and echo-chamber validation. Each retweet or repost acts as social proof that the cruelty is justified. Algorithms amplify the aggression because anger keeps users engaged. This is why the law must move beyond the myth of “online versus real life.” They are now one and the same information ecosystem—and when that ecosystem is poisoned, societies convulse.
If 18 U.S.C. § 2261A were enforced as intended—intervening at the first sign of sustained digital fixation—many of these escalations could be prevented. The statute already recognizes that harassment using “any interactive computer service” is a federal crime when it causes fear or emotional distress. What it lacks is consistent enforcement, digital-forensics training for investigators, and cooperation from platforms whose profit models depend on the very outrage that fuels abuse.
How this “trolling” has had real life effects.
The harassment that began online finally reached my doorstep a few months ao. One of the people connected to Barnum showed up at my home after allegedly being told to follow me from across the country. I had never met or spoken to this person. He was unstable and had made violent threats, including threats against a public official. Law enforcement intervened, and he was hospitalized. Later, his psychiatrist contacted me by email and phone. I told them I believed he had been manipulated by digital predators who had groomed him online, and I urged them to alert law enforcement and added nothing further.
I never met him. Never hacked anything. I was in California for work and to be present at my friend’s retirement for the USAF. He then turned up at my house a week later and was arrested and sectioned.
I first heard this man’s name in 2021, when several people I once considered friends (Patrick Bergy, Millie Weaver, Gavin Wince) spread a false narrative claiming that Nate had picked me up from the airport and that he had then gone missing. At that moment, I was still on a delayed flight, my phone just switching back on while we taxied to the gate. Someone alleging they were law enforcement from Michigan called and told me I was a person of interest for his disappearance in Florida. It was physically impossible for their story to be true. Yet the rumor spread instantly, feeding the online narrative that had already been constructed around me. God intervened that day by disallowing the plane door to open in time and not being able to disembark to catch my connecting flight to Florida. My phone was off due to lack of charge which I did charge on my flight to Florida as my seated neighbor lent me a charger.
His supposed relatives and acquaintances tried to pull me into whatever scheme they were running, but I refused. Still, the digital grooming continued: he was convinced by those same predators that he was somehow “chosen” and that posting my personal information online was justified. When I bought a home, they mocked the purchase, posted photos, deeds, and every piece of information they could find.
The campaign has continued for years. My stalker, a digital predator who lives on the opposite side of the country, remains in contact with my local police department here in Ohio—an obvious red flag. They proudly admit that act and misrepresenting themselves as a journalist. Why would someone with no connection to my life be calling my police department to ask about me? The imbalance is stunning: she is allowed to insert herself into my community, my privacy, and even law-enforcement channels, while I am left to clean up the chaos she creates?
It is hard to comprehend that a stranger can dedicate years to manufacturing lies about another person’s life, to the point of sending others into real-world danger. Once you witness this kind of criminal obsession, you can’t unsee it.
The Recruitment Pattern
As I traced the origins of the harassment, it became clear that the people behind it knew exactly what kinds of personalities to target. They didn’t recruit disciplined professionals; they sought individuals who were emotionally volatile, eager for validation, and easily manipulated by a sense of belonging. Those traits made them ideal instruments. The planners of the operation understood psychology well enough to know that obsession, loneliness, and a hunger for purpose could be converted into loyalty.
One organizer found such a person online—a volatile participant whose need for attention and moral certainty fit the profile perfectly. Once enlisted, she became the public face of the harassment, generating posts, recruiting others, and keeping the noise constant while the real architects stayed hidden. It was a textbook method of proxy warfare: use unstable personalities as cover, reward them with attention, and watch them perform cruelty in plain sight.
This is how coordinated digital predation sustains itself. It identifies the susceptible, feeds them a narrative of righteousness, and directs them toward a target. The manipulators remain safely in the background while the chosen participant carries out the work, convinced that they are part of something noble. In reality, they are the psychological weapon.
The Network Behind the Harassment
What I came to understand over time is that the harassment wasn’t coming from one person—it was part of a network. After exposing corruption that reached from North Dakota into international trafficking and procurement channels, the backlash began to grow more sophisticated. A woman who at first presented herself as a supporter turned out to be part of the same online ecosystem that had been stalking me Breanna Haspert another textbook digital predator. She operated under several aliases and maintained multiple phone numbers, weaving in and out of conversations to collect information and feed it back into the harassment campaign.
The pattern resembled an operation: the core group acted as planners, while a series of unstable or easily influenced individuals carried out the public harassment and disinformation. The more unpredictable the participants, the easier it was for the organizers to distance themselves from responsibility. They weaponized mental illness and loneliness, convincing vulnerable people that they were part of a mission—when in fact they were pawns in a coordinated act of psychological violence.
At the same time, I was fighting legal battles in North Dakota’s courts, where the harassment bled into official processes. The former Attorney General of North Dakota killed himself, his deputy Attorney General did so afterwards and elected officials were arrested for international trafficking seeking sex with minors.The recent (October 2025) Castle Hillsdecision, in which the Supreme Court overturned Fifth Circuit precedent on targeted harassment by law enforcement, finally opened a path for me to pursue a state-level claim considering I have standing on timing.
This network’s tactics were textbook: infiltration, manipulation, amplification, and denial. The ringleaders used anonymity as camouflage and unstable followers as weapons. What I experienced firsthand shows how modern harassment operations fuse the psychological and the procedural, creating chaos both online and in the courtroom.
It’s not just her - About a year ago - Millie Weaver’s and her husband tried to frame me for actions they did and even tried to provide manufactured evidence that I caused turmoil in their life with CPS being involved. Wince, posted things online. When I saw that the communications which I had recorded - coincided with his allegations, I sent those to VERY IMPORTANT people. Told them about the set up that me and my two counterparts uncovered in which Wince deleted his X account. I still have those recordings. Entrapment to cause me legal issues- and might I add that Millie Weaver and Gavin Wince have and maybe still associate with the digital predator Barnum and her recruited individuals.
I don’t need to justify myself, my actions or what I do in my life. If anything life has taught me if you are explaining you are losing and if you explain to people who don’t care it’s useless. Therefore I need not address any of her reframing of facts, or try to understand why they are obsessed with me. Bottom line is most are strangers that I have NEVER interacted with. They are trying to downplay and make it petty but it’s not. Their intent is to cause harm, it’s malicious as it serves NO OTHER PURPOSE. I understand Law Enforcement is simply watching as larger foreign and or domestic cells are collaborating with them but my dog’s poisoning and the exposure of PHONE NUMBERS or random people that are part of my hobby are not ok.
When Obsession Crosses Every Line
Fashion has always been my escape. I love the ritual of it—the textures, the colors, the artistry of a well-made bag or the perfect red lipstick. In my downtime, I join hobby groups where women trade tips about beauty, clothing, and design. It’s my way of staying grounded while I fight the bigger battles—writing, investigating, and litigating on behalf of others.
Even that small piece of peace was invaded. Barnum’s network who has spent years attacking me online infiltrated one of these private groups, pretending to share my interests. Then she exposed the members’ phone numbers and private messages on social media—women who had nothing to do with my professional work or my public life. Her justification was “exposing” me for liking handbags or for buying one while I’m engaged in legal fights, as though beauty or self-expression were crimes. I have every right to enjoy things, make wish lists and even buy things if I want to. The goal was clear: humiliation by any means possible. In her recent video response (which evades the DOD AI search for incitement and dangerous conduct) she takes pride in stalking me through alleged recruitment - the satisfaction she takes is clearly evident. You don't have to be a body language expert for that .
Changing a phone number may pause the harassment, but according to Mullen, Pathé & Purcell (2009) and Sheridan & Grant (2007), stalkers interpret barriers as new territory to conquer. The behavior is driven not by communication needs but by compulsion and perceived ownership of the victim’s attention.
One of the cruelest dimensions of digital predation is the isolation it creates. Stalkers don’t just want to watch you—they want to dismantle your world.
Why doesn’t she cite the post so they can see who she is? ~Ashely Jo Barnum
They understand that if they can make you look like trouble, other people will quietly distance themselves. It’s a psychological quarantine: friends, colleagues, even acquaintances withdraw, not because they believe the lies, but because they’re afraid of becoming the next target. She did that with family and friends already.
Psychologists call this isolation by association, a tactic used in coercive control and stalking. Sheridan and Grant (2007) found that victims of cyberstalking often experience social contagion fear—others avoid them simply to feel safe. Mullen, Pathé, and Purcell (2009) noted the same pattern: the stalker doesn’t just attack a person; they attack the victim’s social ecosystem, cutting off support until the victim feels entirely alone.
In this way, the predator wins twice—first by inflicting fear, and then by manufacturing silence. It’s a deliberate form of psychological warfare. Each friend who steps back, each colleague who hesitates, reinforces the stalker’s illusion of power. The victim’s isolation becomes the predator’s proof of control.
She calls it accountability; I call it stalking for profit. While I create content meant to inform, empower, and hold institutions responsible, she creates content designed to demean and to monetize the spectacle of cruelty. It’s a strange mirror—the way one person can build a platform on destruction while insisting it’s journalism or activism. But when you live inside that contradiction long enough, you learn something profound: obsession doesn’t stop at boundaries. It consumes everything, even the harmless corners of a person’s joy.
The Violence Reaches the Living
Last week my dog was poisoned. I don’t know who placed the toxin or why, but the timing—after years of digital threats—was too deliberate to dismiss. Within hours, the account that has long tormented me online posted about it, offering a performance of sympathy that felt disturbingly insincere. The words expressed pity, yet the delivery—the faint smile, the lifted corners of the mouth, the delayed blink—conveyed something closer to satisfaction than compassion.
Psychologists describe this as “duping delight,” a term coined by Dr. Paul Ekman, the pioneer of micro-expression research. It’s the fleeting pleasure some individuals feel when they believe they’ve deceived others or gained power through manipulation. A 2019 study in Frontiers in Psychology linked these involuntary smirks and micro-smiles to heightened dopamine activity associated with perceived dominance or control. In the context of harassment, such expressions become a form of non-verbal taunting—an unconscious signature of cruelty disguised as empathy.
Seeing that expression in real time—knowing the harm it referenced—was jarring. It stripped the moment of humanity, replacing grief with the cold recognition of someone who finds gratification in another’s pain. In that instant, digital violence became visceral, visible in a single smile.
That moment broke whatever illusion remained that online abuse stays online. When the cruelty that once lived in comment sections suddenly touches something you love, it changes the air around you. Every sound outside your window becomes a question, every notification a potential threat. The digital and the physical merge, and you finally understand what “psychological warfare” means on a human scale.
The Psychology of Pleasure in Cruelty
What I witnessed in that expression is well-documented in psychological literature. It sits at the intersection of malignant narcissism and everyday sadism—a combination of traits that fuels digital predation. According to Erich Fromm, who first coined the term malignant narcissism, these individuals derive self-worth not from love or creation, but from the destruction and humiliation of others. Modern research in personality psychology (Buckels, Jones & Paulhus, Psychological Science, 2013) confirms that some individuals experience genuine pleasure from inflicting or observing suffering. In digital environments, that pleasure is amplified by distance and anonymity; they can witness the chaos they cause without confronting its human cost.
This is why a smirk in the aftermath of someone else’s pain carries such weight. It’s not a random tic—it’s a signal of dominance, the psychological reward mechanism activating in real time. The predator feels validated, even triumphant, seeing their target wounded and still watching. The online world gives these individuals the stage they crave: a place where cruelty can masquerade as commentary and empathy can be weaponized as mockery.
For victims, recognizing that smile isn’t paranoia—it’s pattern recognition. It’s the face of someone who has replaced empathy with power and who confuses another person’s suffering for proof of their own relevance.
All I want is to live my life without fearing that every mistake or small joy will be twisted into public humiliation. I shouldn’t have to wonder who will try to harm me next, leak hospital photos, poison my dog, hack my accounts, file false fraud reports, or stalk my children. Yet this is my reality — a manufactured hell created by a stranger I have never met, an obsessed digital predator who thrives on manipulation and spectacle.
They brag about stalking me, many call it “trolling.” It’s not. It’s the same pattern women have faced for decades — pleading for protection while police say their hands are tied until blood is spilled. I have gone to law enforcement again and again, only to be told that because the perpetrator is in another state, it’s “federal jurisdiction.” But 18 U.S.C. § 2261A exists precisely for this — to stop digital violence before it turns physical. So why isn’t it being used?
Every day brings new fake numbers, burner emails, counterfeit profiles, and private messages aimed at me and my family. How far must it go? Does it end only when I’m gone? When my children are? When will law enforcement act? When will platforms like X stop pretending this is “online drama” and admit the truth — this is criminal stalking, happening in plain sight.
Toward Accountability
Real reform means three things.
First, legal modernization: prosecutors and judges must treat persistent digital harassment as a precursor to violence, not an afterthought.
Second, platform responsibility: social-media companies must be compelled to detect and disrupt patterns of coordinated harassment, not merely delete individual posts.
Third, public literacy: citizens must learn to recognize when online outrage crosses into organized persecution. “Ignore the trolls” is obsolete advice; education and early reporting are the new defense.
Online is no longer a reflection of the world—it is the world. Until laws, platforms, and people accept that truth, digital predators will continue to rehearse their crimes in public view, and the line between the virtual and the violent will keep disappearing.
Honestly, federal surveillance shadows me—a twisted comfort, shielding my children and me, for now. But in good’s grueling war against evil, delays breed danger: hesitation lets darkness surge as resolve fades. My ordeal unfolds publicly, criminality glaring—no badge required to see it. If this devastates me—a resilient woman with a platform and voice—imagine the silent sufferers: invisible, voiceless, crumbling under humiliation, exploitation, and unrelenting digital siege.
The truth is, what happens online no longer stays there. The case of a Nebraska man who tracked a woman across states after months of cyberstalking—arriving at her home with ropes and restraints—proves how easily digital obsession becomes physical threat. It is the same pattern repeating: cruelty rehearsed in public, then performed in private. The law was written to stop this before it happens, yet enforcement waits until the harm is visible, until someone bleeds, breaks, or disappears. If this is what justice looks like under surveillance, what chance do those without protection have? We cannot afford to keep mistaking warning signs for noise. The next victim will not be a headline—they will be someone who cried for help into the algorithm and was met with silence.
She wanted fame, not truth — and when the spotlight didn’t find her, she built it out of other people’s pain. ~ Tore Maras
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