John Edwards has joined the parade. The former North Carolina senator and presidential candidate was indicted last week for using campaign contributions to keep his mistress and their baby in hiding during his 2008 run for the White House. He follows former California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, who admitted fathering a child with a member of his household staff, and Dominique Strauss-Kahn, who had to resign as head of the International Monetary Fund after he allegedly tried to rape a hotel maid in New York City. A lot of people are asking, why do they do it? Why are these rich, powerful men willing to chance ruining everything they have achieved for momentary pleasure? Psychology …
Vienna Presbyterian Church gets it right with abuse scandal
Last week Lovefraud posted an article about the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Philadelphia and its evasive response, or nonresponse, to claims of clergy sex abuse. It was actually written by a member of the church review board, who was as dismayed as many of the faithful. Read Criticizing bishops in the Philadelphia clergy abuse scandal. The Vienna Presbyterian Church in Vienna, Virginia, faced a similar situation when a youth director maintained inappropriate relationships with multiple teenage girls. Eric De Vries infiltrated their lives and manipulated the girls into what they thought were mutual romantic relationships. They said he drew them in as a trusted mentor, friend and …
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LETTERS TO LOVEFRAUD: Part 2–“You have to start acting better”
Editor's note: This is the completion of Lovefraud's e-mail from “robxsykobabe.” The beginning was posted yesterday: Part 1—Giving him the benefit of the doubt. He contacted me April 13th, 2010. Three days before his son's 11th birthday. I didn't respond as he “dangled the carrot” with texting me simply, “I wish”¦” Yeah, it was a game. I didn't contact him because I felt sick to my stomach and severe panic after receiving it. I waited”¦and he didn't contact me again. And I responded”¦and so the story goes. We met and I was LESS than pleased. This was NOT the reunion where we embraced each other and kissed long, sultry kisses. It was the kind of meeting you'd see in a movie and expect a …
LETTERS TO LOVEFRAUD: Part 2–“You have to start acting better”Read More
LETTERS TO LOVEFRAUD: Part 1–Giving him the benefit of the doubt
Editor's note: Lovefraud received the following e-mail from the reader who posts as “robxsykobabe.” Read it—and watch as the sociopathic manipulation blossoms. Here is my story”¦as I've only shared bits and pieces. My ex and I met on a dating website. We met at a mutually convenient place, and upon seeing him for the first time in person, I was in awe! He was the perfect looking guy, casual, with a tall stature, a beautiful face and such charm. We went into a restaurant but didn't eat. We sat at the bar, and I ordered a drink. He did not, saying he doesn't drink anymore. That was fine with me. We engaged in conversation, and at one point, I asked him if he had ever been in prison. Why t …
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Sociopathy runs amok in murder of 15-year-old boy
This case is so shocking that it's difficult to know where to begin. It's a mix of multiple disordered personalities and vicious actions that exploded into the incomprehensible. The trouble apparently started when 15-year-old Seath Tyler Jackson of Belleview, Florida, a town of about 4,500 people located 65 miles north of Orlando, broke up with his 15-year-old girlfriend, Amber Wright. The breakup was public, played out in real time on Facebook. Wright had apparently taken up with a new boyfriend, 18-year-old Michael Shane Bargo. Jackson and Bargo hated each other, and Bargo allegedly wanted to do something about it. Here is what happened, according to media reports that quoted police …
LETTERS TO LOVEFRAUD: None of us stood a chance if I didn’t get out
Editor's note: Lovefraud received the following email from a reader who we'll call “Laurel.” She married Frank as a teenager and had five children with him. Her oldest, Amy, is 19 in the story and married to Matt. Her son, Andy, is 14. Names have been changed. I knew I was leaving. I had been plotting for months, since my first few tastes of TRUE freedom and being around normal people, that I was getting myself and my children out. I had been saving and accumulating paperwork, solid proof of income for months. Keeping it safe and duplicating everything. One morning I walked into Frank's bedroom to give him his coffee and do whatever bidding he had in mind on his IPad, when it occ …
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BOOK REVIEWS: Looking at love and fraud from both sides
By Ox Drover I just finished reading the dueling autobiographies of the disgraced former governor of New Jersey, James E. McGreevey, and his ex-wife, Dino Matos McGreevey. His book is called The Confession and hers is called Silent Partner. Former Governor McGreevey, as you may remember, publicly announced in 2004 that he was resigning as governor of New Jersey because he was being blackmailed by a former homosexual lover. As he pronounced to the world that he was a “gay American,” as he styled himself, his then-wife, Dina Matos McGreevey, stood beside him with a stricken deer-in-the-head-lights look. Many times we get a book from one or the other of two aggrieved parties that sur …
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Young woman jailed after falsely accusing father of rape
It's not a sensational case, but it says so much about sociopaths. In June, 2009, Emma Marrill, a young woman from Camberley, in the United Kingdom, accused her father Phillip Marrill, of raping her. Her father was arrested and held in jail for 22 hours, protesting his innocence. For six months, Emma told the police a “litany of lies” about the rape. Finally, she admitted that she made the entire story up. Her father was cleared, and Emma was charged with perverting the course of justice and ordered to undergo a psychiatric evaluation. Last week, the 21-year-old woman was sentenced to a year in jail. Interestingly, her defense lawyer told the court that Emma Marrill had antisocial pe …
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LETTERS TO LOVEFRAUD: Recovering from the con man
Editor's note: Andrew J. Harper wasn't who he said he was. He wasn't a professional drag racer and he didn't own properties in Europe. But at least 17 women in Australia, New Zealand and the United States believed him—and many lost money because they did. Two of his victims, Diana Mors, who posts on Lovefraud as “AJH_Victim1,” and Rebecca Bell, worked together to find the truth, and the con man was finally arrested in October, 2010. The women told their story in the January 2011 issue of The Australian Woman's Weekly, and then in the North West Star. Read: ”˜How I caught a con man' on NorthWestStar.com.au With the publicity, the women have been contacted by many victim …
Sociopaths and credit cards
Sociopaths love credit cards—especially when they are in someone else's name. Lovefraud recently received an e-mail from a woman whose daughter is married to a sociopath. “How do they do it?” she asked. “How do they get you to put credit cards in your name that they will use?” Our daughter has now procured a card, ugh, (only found out since the billing came here) and I know this is for HIS use and he will be the one using it, burying her in debt that she will never get out of and do you think for a minute HE will pay this debt?? Ha! He does NOT have credit cards (I often wonder why)? Refuses to get one, why? But it's okay to use hers?? I can relate to this experience, because it happened t …