How to recognize and recover from everyday sociopaths - narcissists

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Commissioner blasts SEC for allowing criminal banks to continue business as usual

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Last week five big international banks were found guilty of rigging international currency markets and fined $5.5 billion. The very next day, the Securities and Exchange Commission issued the banks waivers from automatic punishment so they could continue business as usual. SEC Commissioner Kara M. Stein did not agree with letting the banks off the hook and issued a scathing dissent. The banks UBS, Barclays, Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase & Co, and the Royal Bank of Scotland had already been granted a total of 23 waivers after previous wrongdoing. Bank traders actually met in an online chat room called "The Cartel" or "The Mafia" and conspired to rig rates. The scheme ran for years. According …

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The Boston bomber liked cats and dogs – does that mean he’s not a psychopath?

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Dzhokhar "Jahar" Tsarnaev was found guilty of all 30 counts against him for the Boston Marathon bombing. The sentencing phase of the trial is now underway. Yesterday, the New York Times reported that Tsarnaev finally showed some emotion. Some of his relatives from Russia traveled to Boston to plead for his life. They were sobbing, and the convicted murderer also began to cry. According to an article by Lovefraud reader Anne Stevenson, one of the factors in the jury's decision may be Tsarnaev's relationships with cats and dogs. Many psychopaths are cruel to animals. But if Tsarnaev was not cruel to his pets, does that mean he's not a psychopath? Well, I can say that my ex-husband, James M …

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Con artist Bobbi Ann Finley now on her 15th husband

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She's baaaack!!! Lovefraud first wrote about Bobbi Ann Finley almost five years ago, in September 2010. Finley had a habit of hanging around military bases, meeting servicemen, marrying them, and wiping out their bank accounts. When we first wrote about Finley, she'd married 14 men and had at least nine children with almost as many fathers. She was so infamous that she was profiled on ABC's 20/20. In 2011 Finely was convicted of fraud. She was sentenced to three years in an Alabama prison. Well, she's out, and up to her old tricks. She's married again, although Husband #15 is not military. But they're wanted for passing bad checks all over Oregon, unauthorized use of a motor vehicle …

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‘Justified’ highlights the differences between killers and psychopaths

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One of my favorite television shows ever, Justified, just came to an end. After six seasons, the series finale of this smart, sophisticated crime drama, set in redneck Kentucky, aired on Tuesday, April 14, 2015. That morning, the Philadelphia Inquirer ran an article by Tirdad Derakhshani previewing the grand finale. Derakhshani wrote that the main character, U.S. Marshall Raylan Givens (played by Timothy Olyphant), had "the best lawman swagger since John Wayne." I agree. Here's how Derakhshani described the marshall: "A latter-day cowboy who inhabits a strange, surreal version of Harlan County, Ky., Raylan is a gunslinger for the ages. One who kills. Again. And again. He's more of a …

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Fraud prevention tips and checklists

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Marie from Elderimpact.org is appalled by all the fraudulent activity in society, and is on a mission to fight it. "I've been moved to action after a family member was taken advantage of by a scammer in Las Vegas, who banked on her love and dedication to her family and convinced her to wire him thousands of dollars before vanishing without a trace," Marie says to Lovefraud.  "I can't help but think that if we had taken steps to alert her to such scams — how to recognize them, how to be effectively cautious with her information, etc. — this could have been prevented." Here's Marie's list of websites with important information for preventing fraud. Take a look and share the links with eve …

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Why I wrote ‘The One That Got Away’

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By Brigitte Knowles It was 2011, a good year. I made $235,000.00 in my business that year and was at the top of my game. I went out for drinks with a girlfriend in Delray Beach, Florida. My life was only about work and I did not realize that I was out of balance. I had not gone out to a club for years and at 55, I was not a frequent dater, celibate for 5 years. I was ripe for the picking. I did not know that there were Financial Predators in this world. I was targeted by an Italian man who professed true love and wanted to do real estate business with me. He asked for down payments to buy distressed housing in West Palm Beach. We visited several with two real estate agents, mine and his. …

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Was Andreas Lubitz, who crashed Germanwings flight into mountain, depressed or a psychopath?

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Editor's note: The following email was forwarded to Lovefraud by the reader "Jennifer in NYC." She originally sent the email to government officials in the United States and Germany. "Flying below the radar": The real culprit might (again!) be psychopathy (not depression) By Jennifer in NYC After it was determined that the co-pilot on Germanwings Flight 9525, Andreas Lubitz, had deliberately crashed the plane into the French Alps last week, the ongoing investigation has raised many questions about his mental health status and other related health problems.  While reports have confirmed that he was treated for what appears to be depression, attributing this catastrophe to his struggles w …

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A psychology professor asks: ‘Can you recognize a psychopath?’

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Robert Durst, the real estate mogul and accused killer recently featured in an HBO documentary, seems to match the common public perception of a psychopath. But Pascal Wallisch, a professor of psychology and neuroscience at New York University, points out that the public perception of psychopaths is not entirely accurate. In an article for Slate.com, Wallisch does a good job of describing the current scientific understanding of this personality disorder. Can you recognize a psychopath? on Slate.com. I do, however, disagree with one of his statements. He says that psychopaths can't help their behavior. This is not true. Psychopaths are quite capable of controlling their behavior …

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Appalling, shocking, psychopathic behavior, and acting before you have evidence

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I've collected more than 10,000 Lovefraud cases, all of them atrocious tales of deceit and betrayal. Even so, the behavior of Loretta Burroughs, 63, of Mays Landing, New Jersey, was way over the top, heinous beyond belief. On August 3, 2007, Loretta stabbed her husband to death, dismembered his body, packed the remains into plastic totes and dragged them around from house to house, until they were discovered on May 17, 2013. She told her friends and family that Daniel Burroughs, 63 at the time, had left her for a younger woman. They had driven off in a yellow Hummer with Florida license plates. Last week, Loretta Burroughs was convicted of murder. I covered the trial for the Daily …

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Police say 15-year-old boys shoot and kill a man who was walking his dog

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James Stuhlman, 51, of the Overbrook section of Philadelphia, was walking his dog last week when he was allegedly killed by three teenagers in a totally senseless murder. They were going to rob him. One of them had a gun. "Please don't shoot me," he begged. One of the boys allegedly shot him. Then they ran away, without taking anything. All three suspects are now in custody. Philadelphia 15-year-olds murdered married father in failed robbery: cops, on NYDailynews.com. Alleged teenage gunman in Overbrook murder surrenders, on 6abc.com.   …

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