This week the Connecticut Medical Examining Board restored me to the full practice of medicine. Due to the fact that my ex-husband Barry Lichtenthal impersonated a physician and examined female patients in a clinic that I directed, my license was restricted. I am not going to retell the full story today but I am going to comment on some things I have kept silent about. For more details of the story you can read Barry Lichtenthal: Sexual predator ruins the career of Dr. Liane Leedom. Donna Andersen is an excellent journalist and did her own investigation in order to report the story. She uncovered details even I was unaware of.
I want to address the question of whether or not I was Barry’s “accomplice” and the question of what I was aware of in terms of the goings on. The precise answer to the question is that I was an unwitting accomplice. I knew that he told people he was a retired doctor and that he called himself “Dr. Taylor.”
This behavior on his part began shortly after the clinic opened. The first I was aware of it was when I was negotiating a contract with an insurance company. He got on the other line and started schmoozing with the executive. I do not remember exactly what he said but he told the man he was a retired doctor and proceeded to tell funny and entertaining stories. Although I laughed, I was disgusted at this because it seemed infantile on his part and a waste of time. I did not understand this was his “foot in the door” with me and these stories.
I correctly recognized these stories as being pathological lies (pseudologica fantastica). However, I did not understand that all people who are pathological liars are predators. I am now sure that this is the case, though if you read the Mask of Sanity by Dr. Hervey Cleckley, he says that not all pathological liars are psychopaths.
I thought Barry told these stories because he has an ego problem and was threatened by his wife’s status. Again that interpretation was correct, but again I missed the significance of it. I let it go because I thought his pathological lies were harmless entertaining stories that no one really believed any way. Several patients indicated to me they were aware that the stories were entertaining fabrications.
I never told anyone Barry was a doctor. In fact I told every patient I was the only physician at the practice. I realize now this must have been very upsetting and confusing for some people who were being told one thing by me and another thing by Barry. Since he is a professional con artist who do you think was believed?
Because of this terrible judgment on my part, I deserved all the punishment that I received. Since I was part of other people’s victimization, I sought to do everything I could to make amends. The victims were compensated by my malpractice insurance carrier after I provided hours of truthful testimony regarding what happened. The officials of the insurance company believed my explanation that I never intended any fraudulent or criminal activity. I made the wrong decision regarding coping with my husband’s story telling.
Shortly after Barry’s arrest, I had the good fortune to speak with Annie Mcguire from fraudaid.com. It was she who made me aware of Donna Andersen. She and I also had a discussion of the unwitting accomplices of psychopaths. She said this is very common and pointed out that psychopaths could not do what they do without witting and unwitting accomplices. She has written step by step instructions for what to do if you are the unwitting accomplice to financial fraud.
I am speaking out about the fact that I was an unwitting accomplice to fraud to help to bring attention to this phenomenon. Psychopaths con and manipulate people into helping them do their dirty work and sometimes also into doing their dirty work for them. If we can raise public awareness of psychopathy and stop non-psychopaths from helping psychopaths we will be able to do a great deal of prevention. Do not ever help a psychopath in any way or you will be tricked into becoming an accomplice.
Now that gets me to telling the rest of the story. You might be wondering, “What ever happened to Barry Lichtenthal?” It is no surprise that he went to Connecticut State prison where he continued to tell his pathological lies. Prison staff members became his unwitting accomplices when they too did not prevent him from calling himself “doctor” or “doc.”
A law enforcement official told me that it was not illegal for Barry to call himself “doctor” in prison. He said this after I verbally reprimanded him for allowing this to go on. I told him I believe prisoners like Barry need to have a special designation “psychologically dangerous” so that prison staff will not be psychologically harmed by them. It seems odd that if a prisoner is more physically dangerous than average, staff members are warned, but there is no appreciation of the concept of psychological dangerousness.
Now enter another set of accomplices, family members. Even after they knew that Barry is what he is because I told them while also fully explaining the concept of psychopathy; and even after they witnessed his destruction of my life, members of his family participated in his seduction of his next woman. They sent her flowers on his behalf while he was incarcerated. They also did nothing to warn her even though I begged them to.
I was told by inside sources that the prison nurse who married Barry at one point believed he was a doctor. But I have not spoken with her myself to verify this. Donna and I have known about Barry’s new relationship because we both received letters from him while he was incarcerated, and the letters were not all stamped with the prison stamp. I received several letters addressed in a woman’s handwriting and postmarked “Hartford, CT.” Upon seeing the letters I knew that he had yet another person manipulated. I did my own investigation and found out he married a nurse who worked in the prison.
Donna and I did not write about our investigation of Barry and his marriage to the prison nurse because although I have all the documentation of the events that went on in the prison, we have no proof Barry and the nurse were actually married. Donna is a very good journalist and you can trust that she will not tell a story without possessing proof. For more information regarding Barry’s recent activities see Probation department wants access to sex offender’s computer
I pray every day that Barry, now in his 60s has mellowed and become less predatory. I believe that the best person to deal with him is an experienced prison nurse so I hope that situation is going well. I also pray there will be no more victims and no more accomplices.
Eden
IT IS good advice. I understand it, I think…..just having a hard night………..
I have a question and it might sound insane, but I am a Jew and I am trying to understand something…
I find myself repeating “He’s going to burn in Hell”, for what he did. In addition I refer to him as Satan Ambassador (I took that from another blogger here, because it fits him so well). I also refer to him as “The Devil, Himself”. In actual fact, there is no Hell, Devil or Satan in Judaism. We don’t believe in any of them, nor is there ever any reference made to them. But I do sometimes wonder, since I have been repeating these words at times, Can the Devil Burn in Hell? Doesn’t the Devil, or Satan reside there, and if so, does this mean that the Psychopath whom of which is pure evil, like Satan, will not burn in Hell? Please don’t think I am crazy or on drugs. Just curious about it, is all.
Thank you for your help with this!
E
.
we all have our own interpretation of hell and satan and evil and demons etc , it all comes down to personal religious and spiritual belief’s…burn in hell is just a phrase.. I dont believe in an acutal burning hell either but i bet some bloggers are saying oh hens is in for a surprise . We try not to discuss religion here cause it can ruffle alot of feathers – saying all those things you mentioned is just a form of cussin for me anyway…
Heaven and Hell relate to the notion that one’s relationship with the Almighty might be in either a positive or negative condition.
What I get is that you are on board with the desire that this person should feel your pain and rage by their experience. By burning in Hell. Its an awesome concept of torture and despair.
I understand the feeling.
How to exact it? Well, best not to go round lighting matches I suppose. But what if you were able to dismiss them? Not to think on or of them. To just let them be dismissed from your consciousness, As though they were never there?
If you study the spiritual, do it for yourself and not with the disordered in mind. He will come to no good end in the end. And he will have an experience of Hell which he will not be able to redeem in the end.
Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but [rather] give place unto wrath: for it is written, Vengeance [is] mine; I will repay, saith the Lord.
Romans 12:19
I need to vent this out:
In thinking about my fear of seeing him somewhere, or even the fear of NOT (avoidance of me too out of him, can’t have gf see that some angry bitch he screwed up might want to let his new gf know what a lying cheating bastard he is), this is what I came up with:
He violated me on so many levels. SO many levels. I can’t even describe. I allowed it.
He hurt me SO badly that I would REACT CONSTANTLY to his machinations, to the things he said to hurt me. I was FIGHTING the entire relationshit. He nearly ALWAYS remained calm in the face of my anger. There were also times he would berate the shit out of me and I’d sit there in silence and listen. There were other times that he’d berate the shit out of me and I’d get up, say nothing, grab my stuff and leave and he’d come running out to my car to beg me to come back inside the house….
What a horrible, terrible mindfuck it all was. ANY of these scenarios could be happening on a particular day or evening…..
But most of the time, I REACTED!!! I sounded and felt and acted like an absolute LOON I was so upset ALL OF THE TIME!!
I remember exPOS would tell me that his ex wife would stay up half the night screaming at him as he was “trying to get some sleep” in his room in his bed at night. FUCKING BASTARD!! He used that as a pity ploy. Another time, he called me and said nothing, but held the phone up to where I could hear her SCREAMING at him……..
NO wonder. MY GOD, no wonder she was so angry!!!! She was reacting just like I did. EXACTLY as I did…..
But ex wife had something I did not. Her family loved her dearly. They are VERY close. She has two great sisters who supported her. Who had been through it with other men in their lives in the past, and could “school” her, as her sister wrote to me in an email, “As to the machinations of someone as controlling as J’. THEY knew. She spilled EVERYTHING he had done to her, including with me. But even when talking to the sister, the ex wife or the new love bomb (prior to new gf), I was out of CONTROL!!!! I kept bothering them like an out of control FREAK. I accused them and I was IMMEDIATELY suspicious of them if they didn’t believe me, even when they DID believe….
I was an absolute mess. His manipulations and accusations through the smear campaign were incredible and don’t get me started on what he did to me in the hearing regarding his job.
And this was a man I loved. I have never felt or been so humiliated in my entire life by any spath I’ve grown up with (parents) or known since.
The pain is EXCRUTIATING………
So when I see him, what I understand is that he got the best of me. The best of my sex, my love and care. He got it all…….and he’d just simply snicker at me, if he did see me and know that he got one up on me……..actually more than one up..and the reality that all around him think I’m a nutcase for my reactions and responses make my shame somuch more magnified……
If I could take it all back, I would. My anger has been a pattern throughout the entire relationshit. I truly and honestly believe that ex wife didn’t care WHOM thought she was a nutcase (as he freely and liberally paints her out to be) is because she was already surrounded by a ton of love and support, her sisters, her parents (who can’t stand the bastard now), people at her church who believed her (he says he got kicked out, not true, he bailed as a coward because they HATED him for what he did to her), and their friends who believed her too and NOT him…(He also did the victim thing there too “I lost all my friends because of HER” nevermind what he DID to lose them!!) and then his honing in on a chick he met at his high school reuninon and flirted with, then love bombed (he didn’t give a shit about her at all, or that she was in love with someone else, she had dollar signs all over her head for him),……..
I reacted so poorly. I put them all through the ringer. I thought about that today. I knwo why I did. I was afraid they would NOT believe what I had to say…and i was so angry at what he did to me………..
I WANT him to have retribution. The truth is that he won’t. There are always other victims to buy into the bullshit. I was just one of many in the littered emotional carcasses he’s left behind.
Last love bomb said, “ya know, I looked at him and thought, ‘I can’t understand why any woman would want to date him”…..
I see Akitameg’s stuff and I know why.
When you’re in a vulnerable place, or you’re struggling with past issues or fear of what you will never have, two weeks feels like an eternity of love and friendship from some asshole who’s whispering those sweet nothings in your ear.
ExPOS and I were “friends” for two years prior to any level of intimacy occurring.
This isn’t the case with new gf and it wasn’t with love bomb. It was sorta funny, but sad in a way, as to how he was able to share his “feelings” about her, even having seen her only THREE TIMES………
BASTARD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
And he did it all with me hanging on the LAST of the string I thought might be left.
That he loved me. And part of my reactions and acting out to those who might be probable companions in raising awareness against him, became my enemies on a dime if I felt they did not respond to what I knew he was. A GIANT five foot one piece of shit.
I was jealous. Of anyone who didn’t believe, because it meant I might be wrong about him.
Fuck that. I wasn’t WRONG about him. But I did’nt handle it well at all either.
I feel like such a shmuck trying to warn and then keeping on violating each woman’s peace……
So now, I don’t look at his fb, dating site or whatever else that would remotely remind me of him. But my fear of running into him also stems form a theme that has run my ENTIRE life……”She’s better…..she’ll keep it together…you weren’t WORTH the pot you pissedin bitch!”
THere is a great part of me that says that’s BS!!!
But I still have to try to find her.
I”m so angry that I reacted the way I did. If I could take it all back, I would.
But I can’t. So when he sees me, he can’t paint me out to be the freak at home when his new gf gets suspicious and wants to see his puter programs……….or is disturbed by this behavior…
I’m so angry. I keep going to my stores and will, because I don’t want myself to think he got the best of me, even though he did.
RB..
RB
Hens,
Cussin’ is good. Every time I think of the insult,I break out in a verbal rash!
Hell,hell, hell(*Y(*Y{(HYJFSNHK:JBRI*Y*(TRTYTBNFR(*#@YR(%Y^!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Hahahaha! Have a good night.
🙂
bloomin rose – you are going through with-drawal from all the drama and chaos – trauma bonding is a real thing – our brains get addicted to the high anxiety and fight or flight mode – being on constant alert – hypervigilance is like adrenaline – I am saying this because I was on constant hypervigilant mode with my x never knowing what was going to happen next – never being able to really relax and feel good about the relationship – so I was a walking zombie – my brain was fried and didnt know what i wanted – so after i kicked him out last and final time – i was thinking NOW i can get my life back – it took me 2.5 years – but you are going through a crazy withdrawal – give your brain some time to cath up – your not going to die from less drama or chaos i promise –
Eden,
Those are really INTERESTING questions! I’ll tell you why I think so: because it had completely slipped my mind that Jews don’t believe in the devil or hell.
Let me explain. I’m Catholic so I’ve always been taught about the devil and hell as if it is a singular person and a place. I’ve also grown up reading enough horror books to know about vampires and witches. What I came to see very clearly when I learned about the spaths is that these stories are actually parables to explain the inexplicable.
When I first understood what a spath was, I could clearly see that the stories of vampires “mirrored” (haha pun intended) what spaths do. They steal your soul, they make you pine for more of them, they mirror you, they wear a semblance of humanity where there is none, they turn you into one of them when they bite you (sometimes, like my spath sister) but they will pick out a really innocent victim to keep alive and milk for a long while until they steal her soul and she dies or becomes empty like them.
The stories of witches are similar: they change reality, they cast spells, etc… it’s no wonder that people were hanging and burning them!
I remember the stories of the devil, Lucifer and how he was the favorite angel, more beautiful than the others. I remember how he became narcissistic and tried to usurp God’s throne (all narcissists try to steal authority) and he recruited other angels to his evil side (they most CERTAINLY always recruit accomplices) and all the little stories like in the book of Job where he is mentioned.
These stories are obviously the ingenius works of people who understood the sociopathic personality disorder but didn’t have a clinical way of describing it. They were likely shell-shocked as they composed the fantasys.
Your reference to the devil indicates that you consciously or subconsciously see the correlation in the two personalities (your spath and the devil).
So it makes me wonder, if Jews don’t believe in Lucifer, what stories do they have to explain an encounter with a spath? Isn’t the book of Job part of the Jewish books?
I’m very interested in this.
Eden,
I’m not familiar with the Jewish religion, so I can’t even offer the slightest assistance with this………..
But I DO have ideas about it. First, look up the definition of evil. Does the Jewish religion acknowledge evil for what it is? I’m not sure that evil is strictly a religious perspective.
My exPOS was a marrying burying card carrying pastor to do both.
He practiced not SHIT of his religion. I think it’s the ONE thing he was contradictory about and lied his ass off about……..
His appearances were just that. Anything below that, is not worth mention.
Perhaps I’m too wounded and angry right now, to deal with the question, but what I DO know Eden is that you’re getting stronger all the time and I see it in your posts!!
Thank GOD for that. On behalf of the women here in the planet, unfortunate enough have met one of these bastards, you DESERVE all the good you can have and get.
I’m so tired. It’s off to bed for me now, Chica.
Hang in there!
Rb,
Take some comfort from the fact that little Mr. Winky has this dude on an early retirement plan that is going to make it real tough to keep on keepin on.
One day, you may well pass him sleepin’ in a doorway because the game doesn’t work anymore. These guys are NEVER as bright as they think they are! NEVER.
It will catch up with him. It will. It always does.
You on the other hand, are going t be fine. Because when he left, you got a whole new lease on life.
Think about how lucky you are, really. It should make you smile. I know it did me. 🙂