Carrie Goldberg - Nobodys Victim: Fighting Psychos, Stalkers, Pervs, and Trolls

My name is Carrie Goldberg and Im a victims rights lawyer. Some people call me a passionate advocate or a social justice warrior. Id rather be called a ruthless motherfucker. I operate my firm, C.A. Goldberg, PLLC, with one fundamental rule: if one of my clients has been harmed, somebody must pay. Its as simple as that.

My clientsI represent everyone from successful businesspeople to struggling studentshave endured unimaginable offenses. Theyve been assaulted, stalked, threatened, raped, and extorted. Their sexual privacy has been invaded, their reputations destroyed, and their lives put in danger. As a result of these crimes, some of my clients have lost their jobs or been forced to leave school, their entire lives and careers upended.

One of my first clients was a seventeen-year-old girl coerced into performing sex acts by a man shed met online. She was so distraught I worried she might harm herself. Another client was being impersonated online by a vindictive boyfriend who posted multiple Craigslist ads with my clients phone number and work address promoting her as a sex worker and inviting men over for sex. Yet another client was doxed by an angry mob of trolls who bombarded her with death threats so vicious she fled her home in fear.

Before coming to see me, most of my clients have tried to help themselves. If they are students, theyve gone to their school officials; if they are being harassed online, theyve appealed to webmasters and platform administrators. Many have gone to the policenot once but repeatedly. One client sought help more than fifty times before he came to me. I meet people when they are desperate, traumatized, even suicidal, which is exactly what these offenders want. The attacks are meant to crush your soul. I know because its happened to me.

I met my psycho ex on the dating site OkCupid. At the time, I was in my midthirties, newly divorced, and living in New York, working as the lead lawyer at the Guardianship Project at the Vera Institute of Justice. My job entailed advocating for mostly indigent, elderly, or mentally disabled adults unable to advocate for themselves and without suitable family to care for them. Courts had deemed our clients legally incapacitated and designated the Vera Institute their court-appointed guardian. I had the sobering responsibility of making decisions about every aspect of my clients livesfrom money and caretakers to housing and birth control. I didnt realize at the time how much I longed for someone to take care of me.

When my ex first messaged me, I was immediately intrigued. He was charming, smart, and creative. Hed graduated from the prestigious Wharton business school, he said, and had sometimes commuted there by helicopter. We texted and direct messaged for hours a day, talking about everything: past relationships, his missing turtle, fashion. Our connection was fun, playful, and deeply serious. When we finally met face-to-face, we became instantly inseparable. He chauffeured me around in his Mercedes SUV, bought me jewelry, and commissioned artwork for meall within the first month. It was romantic and intoxicating. I trusted him with all my secrets. I felt protected and adored.

But then, a few weeks after we started dating, things began to change. He started checking up on me, texting me obsessively whenever I worked late: Why arent you home? Where are you? Who are you with? Anytime I tried to hang out with friends or talk on the phone with family, he threw a fit. More than once I woke up in the middle of the night and found him sitting straight up, staring at me. He was insanely jealous and would fly into violent rages over imaginary cheating scenarios he refused to believe werent true.

One night a friend invited me to a fund-raiser for her new play. The event was held in the basement of a community theater on the Lower East Side where I had no cell reception. Walking out, I checked my phone and saw more than two dozen missed calls from my ex and a string of frantic text messages demanding I respond. He called me a bitch, accused me of cheating on him, proclaimed we were done, then insisted I call. He wrote: Think you can betray me like this? I will fuckin END you. I was terrified.

Id like to say I ended things right then. But it took a few months and more frightening incidents before I was finally able to summon the courage to leave the relationship for good. As soon as it was over, my ex started to attack in earnest. He flooded my phone and email with hundreds of threatening messages. He told me he was going to post intimate pictures of me online. He filed a false police report claiming Id assaulted him. He even contacted my friends, family, and colleagues on Facebook, spreading lies about my having a sexually transmitted infection and being addicted to drugs. He said he hired three HIV-positive men to rape me. He told me this was war.

For almost a year, my life was consumed by this battle. I filed a police report, obtained an order of protection, and begged a judge to restrain my ex from posting naked pictures and videos of me online. I spent $30,000 in legal fees and countless hours defending myself against my exs false accusations before the charges were eventually dropped. I moved out of the co-op I loved and into an apartment with a doorman. Even then, I didnt feel safe. Walking down the street, out of the corner of my eye I would catch a glimpse of someone who looked vaguely like my ex and freeze. I thought there was no way I could ever escape his attacks and recover my life.