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"It couldn't have been me, I'm too smart to get caught."
When we first moved in to our new house, we had no idea that one of our neighbors was so bent upon keeping us out of the neighborhood and making us move that they would not only wage a costly legal fight against the town, but send us threatening messages through the internet. During the legal battle, we attempted to contact some of our neighbors to obtain their support in getting a ZBA hearing which would prevent us from having to cut down a large number of trees, thereby exposing the radio towers I had a right to erect on my property. One of our neighbors did not return any of our phone calls so we sent him an email. The email which we sent him contained a private email address to use in reply. His reply came months later, but not before he apparently passed my private email address to Richard and Suzanne Marchand. The first email came to my private email address on May 21, 2000. From a fictious email address taken out on MSN/HOTMAIL came the following message:
I didn't know if this might be someone I used to know, so I sent a reply inquiring who the person was. Another email came to my private email address on May 22, 2000. From the same ficticous email address came the following message:
I then replied inquiring where I knew "Herb Ashby" and received no response. On or about July 31, 2000 I received another email from "Herb Ashby" through internet provider MSN Hotmail:
Since I had received no reply from this person, I requested MSN Hotmail to provide details about the account because of the legal proceedings. Since there was an ongoing legal case, communication between parties is only supposed to happen through counsel. I began to suspect that these communications were coming from the Marchands or their supporters. Since there had been three emails from "Herb Ashby" and I complained to MSN Hotmail that these emails had been sent unsolicited, I was informed that the account was subsequently closed by MSN Hotmail. Microsoft refused to provide any further information without court order. On or about August 9, 2000, I received the following email from “Jeremy Muler” through the internet service provider MSN/HOTMAIL:
Then it started getting a little bit more disgusting. On or about August 12, 2000 I received another email from "Jeremy Muler" through MSN Hotmail:
I started attempting to track them down in a bit more earnest. I sent another complaint to MSN Hotmail and also started tracking the source of the emails through the upstream provider, UUNET (now Worldcom/MCI). I was again told my MSN Hotmail and now by UUNET that they would not divulge the identity of the user. On or about August 27, 2000, another email was received from "Jeremy Muler" through internet provider MSN Hotmail:
On September 1, 2000, I got an email from MSN stating that the "Jeremy Muler" account had been closed. They continued to refuse to provide the identity. On September 7, 2000, I received an email from "Melvin Schmidt" through the internet provider EXCITE@HOME stating:
Next it started getting a bit more scary. The next email was received on September 9, 2000 stating:
The next mail came on September 18, 2000 stating:
Since my home doesn't have 10 bathrooms, and this statement was made by someone as justification for denial of a building permit for my towers at a Zoning Board hearing in August 1998, we figured it had to be someone who was there at that hearing. Interesting that the argument that 10 bathrooms is a reason for denying a building permit, but that's another story. This kind of email is designed to scare someone by telling them that they've been in your house while you weren't there. The next email came on September 24, 2000:
The next email came on October 24, 2000:
Another on October 29, 2000:
Another on November 25, 2000:
The last came on December 9, 2000:
Because of the statements that we were being watched and the statement saying that they had been in our house, my wife and I decided to trace the emails back to their sources. Through court orders, the email trail was followed. It turned out that all the email accounts were sent from an Earthlink account held by Donn Withers, the business partner of Richard Marchand. The Earthlink account was registered to Mr. Withers at the business address of D and R CADCAM Services in Nashua, NH. The "Herb Ashby" and "Jeremy Muler" MSN accounts were accessed both using the Earthlink accounts and the dial up internet services provided by Encanto Networks (a now defunct California ISP) to D and R CADCAM Services. The caller ID on the dial up accounts showed that some of the emails were sent from the residence of Donn Withers and both of the MSN accounts were accessed from the business address of D and R CADCAM Services at 100 Daniel Webster Highway in Nashua, NH. When the police were brought in, they confronted Mr. Withers and Mr. Marchand. We were told that although the police were convinced these people had sent the emails, they weren't going to prosecute them. One of the most telling statements is the one made to the police by Mr. Marchand, "It couldn't have been me, I'm too smart to get caught."
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