when someone texts you “I sat in the parking lot of the hostipal and watched you walk in with your light black jacket you bought from the Bay” … call that stalking?
when someone calls you on a daily basis by using multiple texting apps and payphones leaving computerized voices with scary music in the background then at the end his real voice says “you hard headed bitch had to take it to the police” … is that not harassment?
Regarding the OP statement, "he breached the restraining order and spent a night in jail but got off because his lawyer claims there was a technicality in the restraining order because his son was serve instead of him. "
Questions:
**Who’s fault **is it that the wrong person was served?
Who did the serving?
If the answer to the above was some 3rd party, how is it the OP’s fault if the blame falls upon someone who was not an agent for the OP?
Just ask’in.
Like someone else suggested, talk to a women’s crisis center, women’s rights lawyer, battered women’s shelter (I know, but they’ll have resources), even get some free consultations with some lawyers or see if any do pro-bono work.
I’d suggest filing a police report for each and every one of these texts message (and/or every time he makes contact with you).
Also, as for, if I’m reading it correctly, him requesting/requiring you to make a statement, IIRC, the current buzzword is ‘revicitimization’, but all the women’s places will know that.
As for not you can countersue, I don’t know, I don’t know the ins and outs of that, however, my WAG is that the 250k he’s suing you for is an scare tactic to get you to drop what you’re doing.
You should, perhaps, re-read the OP. You’re suggesting that this person may have made an off-color comment a few years ago within earshot of the OP and she’s still annoyed by it, and to be fair, I know a few women that have cases like that. That is, they’ve heard a male make an off color joke, to another person, 30, 40, 50, feet away and they just happened to over hear it and they forever hate that person. That’s fine, but that’s not the case.
Literally the first line of the first post of this thread was “I have a stalker that has been harassing me for 2 year that has been reported to the police multiple times”
I truly believe that there’s 2 (or 3) sides to every story, but did you really think when the OP said someone has been harassing and stalking them for years that they really meant they made a random comment to someone else 2 years ago that didn’t sit right to them?
SJW live for comments like those, and with good reason, they’re insulting.
You can’t blame people for being skeptical of someone who only posts once, and by all appearances has left without acknowledging any of the replies. People generally want to support each other here, but in the absence of more information, all we can do is speculate. And even though we do have several lawyers here, the best they can do is offer general advice. They are not your lawyer, you are not their client, blah, blah, blah. The best anyone can do here is to guide you to resources and offer you opinions to enable you to help yourself.
I’ve mentioned this before, but sometimes I’ve done this on other boards. Registered, asked a question, was automatically logged out by the board software but continued to check the thread over the coming days or weeks. I’ve believe in not feeding trolls or ignoring drive by posters, but just because the green light hasn’t lit up since the minute they posted their first OP, doesn’t mean they aren’t reading the replies.
Especially in cases like this where the OP is looking for help and the first few replies are ‘move to Florida’, ‘we can’t help you’ and someone literally saying ‘this is probably in your head, you’re just reading into an innocent remark made to another person by a male you find unattractive a few years back’.
it was the police that served his son, when I questioned the officer he said he’s allowed to serve a family member over the age of 18. this is why I believe it’s a frivolous lawsuit and hes just seeking financial revenge against me… ad his latest voicemails usually say “youre going to have more legal fees to pay coming up”
Thank you!
Oh. I thought it was going to be something like “He and his son have the same name, and the OP failed to specify ‘Sr.’ on the application for the RO.”
So they served the residence, not the person? Is he somehow claiming he never got it? That’s the only thing I can imagine.
He’s countersuing?
Countering what exactly? Are you suing him? I thought he was suing you? Did you mean you’re countersuing him, maybe?
I’m confused. Who’s suing whom again? And who’s countersuing whom? For what?
I am not a lawyer. I agree that you should find a Victim’s Advocacy group and ask for representation asap.
Is this a summary of what happened?
For 2 years, a man has threatened you and stalked you. He’s sent you multiple threatening text messages and voice calls that have intimidated you. You have repeatedly asked him to leave you alone, have attempted to block his phone number, etc, have changed your phone number, etc., but he has continued to harass you.
Although urged by police, you have been reticent to file criminal charges against him because you don’t want to antagonize him.
You decided instead to apply for a restraining order. A judge granted you a TRO (temporary restraining order).
Now here’s where it gets fuzzy. Which ones of these is correct:
4a) After the TRO but before the hearing for a permanent injunction, the defendant violated the TRO and was arrested. He claims that he was not notified of the TRO, because it was served to his son instead of him. He’s now filed a lawsuit for wrongful arrest, but you do not want to answer that lawsuit because you have no money and do not want to be subjected to his lawyer’s questioning.
OR
4b) The court served notice of a hearing for permanent protective order to the defendant’s household. The hearing was held, the defendant failed to appear, and the judge issued a permanent restraining order against him by default. He subsequently violated the permanent order and was arrested. He claims that he didn’t appear at the permanent hearing because he wasn’t served, and now argues that injunction was improperly granted. He has filed a lawsuit against you for wrongful arrest.
OR
4c) The court granted you a TRO. However, because you didn’t want the trauma of having to testify in front of the defendant, you failed to appear at the hearing for a permanent injunction, so the permanent restraining order was denied. He contacted you again, you had him arrested for violating a TRO that had expired, and he has now filed a lawsuit against you for wrongful arrest.
If it’s 4a or 4b, his lawsuit will be thrown out because he is suing the wrong person. If he was not served properly, then the police would be to blame. You had no way of knowing that his son was served instead of him, and you acted properly because you were granted a restraining order, which he violated.
If it’s 4c, then my advice would be to re-file for a TRO asap and this time you MUST be prepared to testify at the permanent hearing. Having a permanent restraining order in place is very important for you because it shows that the courts agreed that he is harassing you. It would bolster your defense against his “wrongful arrest” claim.
I’d also strongly advise you to reconsider filing criminal harassment charges against him. He’s already provoked by the TRO, and a criminal conviction will bolster your case against him.
That being said, if I was truly in fear that this guy would kill me, I’d not rely on a restraining order to protect me. I’d move. If that was impossible, at the very least, I’d buy a gun and/or adopt a really big dog.
Good luck.
Hey! That’s good advice!
Thank you for all the advice.
4a is pretty much the closest to my situation. He would not accept the fact that i need a restraining order against him as he’s claiming he’s not a threat and he only hounded me because he cared so in his eyes its not harassment and stalking, even watching me in the hospital parking lot he’s saying its because he was worried about me. I dont want him to worry about me and/or be my saviour!! so he kept disputing the temp restraining or by having me cross examined to prove to the courts that he “cared” and not harassed/stalked… which is not the case! all he had to do is accept it as its just a damn paper saying leave me alone… would that not be better than being charged with criminal harassment (which I’ve been trying to avoid and that would make him furious and want to kill me if he had a criminal record, he travels with his job and it would ruin him) so to not piss him off too much i thought the RO would be my first step and maybe he would just finally go away. now he’s taken it to the extreme by suing me just to prove he is right and i am wrong. also making fun of me with his voicemails telling me to start looking for cocks to suck because ill have more legal fees to pay. messaged my friend saying I’m suing her even tho she has nothing but i want her to know that when you fuk with someone they fuk back… in a couple days i will go back to the police and tell them I’m finally ready to charge him as the only thing left that he hasn’t done to me yet is kill me.
I let the temp RO expire from the advice of the police…
I’ve considered getting another attempt at a restraining order but i know if i do he will force me into another cross examination, but from my understanding if he is charged it comes with an RO automatically which will save me lawyer fees.
I was confused as well… when I was served the papers said counter claim… I never sued him but I just found out by having people look at all my papers that when I applied for a temp RO there was a form the courts made me fill out that was titled Statement of Claim (which is my application of the RO), so this is his counter claim… suing me for wrongful arrest and defemation of character becuase supposedly I’m lying about needing an RO which he claims it is not necessary … why? becuase he wants to continue to harass me and not admit that he is at fault of harassment?
Yes, do this and don’t back down. Don’t let him intimidate you. Let him lose his job. That’s not your problem. Your problem is your safety, and you deserve that more than he deserves a job.
In my very non-legal opinion, I’d leave all that out when discussing this with anyone, be it your lawyer, his lawyer, the police anyone. Don’t giving anyone any opportunity at all to say “he’s just trying to be nice” or “yeah, it’s weird, but he’s just trying to keep an eye out for you”. You’ve already seen that happen upthread with jtur saying it. People are going to look for multiple sides of the story, you don’t have to tell his for him. Just stick to the actual facts. The phone calls, the text messages, the threats to your and your friends, breaking the RO etc.
Also, I’d continue to call the police. If you see him or he sends you a text message implying he’s watching you from across a parking lot, I wouldn’t hesitate for a second to call 911 and request that an officer be sent over. Same if he’s on your property.
And to repeat what cochrane said, don’t worry about his job, he’s not. If he said that this being on his record could cost him his job he’s A)using that to manipulate you and B)if he really was worried about his job he would have stopped now that things got real.
OTOH, if he didn’t say that, it’s just you worried about it…stop. Don’t worry about anything except yourself. If this is an ex or a family member or a friend, you’re going to have to make a decision, but it sounds like you have and if you want them gone, you need to separate your feelings from this and push forward, no backing down.
What you need is a lawyer to help sort out all of this or even some type of advocate to help you navigate the legal system and to keep pushing you when he/the police/judge are telling you to let the RO expire or not to press charges or in some other way to let it go.
Another thing, I wonder if it’s possible to sit down with someone at the police station (it may be if you live in a smaller city where the officers have time to talk). There could be a big difference between an officer just getting a call to pick someone up for violating a RO vs them actually understanding the situation.
IME, when officers know what’s going on in the city, sometimes they can nip things in the bud. It could be as simple as an officer seeing him hanging out near where you work and suggesting that he keep moving and that could be that for the day.
Of course, in a big city/county, that’s not always going to work. But it’s one of the reasons why I like living/working in a smaller city.
He sounds like a narcissist or sociopath–they love to use the legal system to harass when they can’t get to their target. I second the suggestion to talk to the police about filing criminal stalking charges. These situations are crazy making and I wish you luck.
you’re dead on! feom my research I’ve come to the conclusion hes a narcissistic sociopath. .my question is how am I going to win?! he’s claiming to be the victim, making up lies that my friends and I are harassing him and that the only reason I went to the police is becuase I supposedly owe him money. the next day after I filed my first police report he started messaging me that I owe him money… hes claiming I only phoned the police in retaliation to not paying him back which I owe him nothing! ugh hes a master manipulator
Step 1: block him on your phone/email/social media etc
Step 2: know your truth and hold your head high
Dealing with these type of people is never easy, esp when they are your target.
I may have missed this, but do you have a lawyer?