The images in this post are excerpts used under Fair Use Guidelines to illustrate the narrative. The screenshots used which are complete are public record filed in the Court of Asti. All screenshots are accurate and truthful records of the original posts made.
2012 initiated a devastating expansion and worsening of the “team's” collective/linked cyber bullying techniques targeting us. They opened new venues, linked to each other's sites and as Renato became more involved, they began to attack him too.
By the beginning of 2012, Renato established, Viale Industria Pubblicazioni, a production company with the primary purpose to publish Affairs Valentino. Because of the “team's” daily, aggressive threats, we decided to sell the book directly to interested readers. We built a website where people could order the book from us and we would have it shipped directly from the printer.
David Bret was filing his attacks on us from many sites in 2012; his Twitter account and from several designated blogs. I opened a Twitter account to respond and began tweeting our defense as best I could. Terhune was still somewhat hiding on The Fraud Files site, but he was tagged there on every post along with Bret, while also posting on his Valentino Wept blog. (see previous post, "2011")
When they began claiming Ms. Pickford was posing and tweeting as me, Renato suggested I make a video of myself responding to their attacks to prove the response was from me. I covered all the issues; Affairs Valentino was not fiction, I was not a drug addict nor homophobic, etc. We made twenty-nine five or ten minute video responses which we uploaded to Youtube. These were in direct response to the “teams” posts.
In 2012, I mentioned, without naming a name, how my friend and Valentino scholar Father Michael Morris edited Affairs Valentino. This prompted Bret to send a copy of the introduction to the book to Father Morris' superior in an effort to have him fired. Over the years one of Bret's favored tactics was to go after my supporters' and family's employers. Bret also began harassing Michael Morris online calling him, “Padre Liberace” and tweeting obscenities about him.
Anyone who expressed support for us came under attack, with Bret writing salacious and obvious “spoofs” about us and our supporters and uploading them for sale. These “Valentino Spoofs” as Bret called them, were about us despite his efforts to claim otherwise. He uploaded them to his Lulu account and sold them as books.
It was also in 2012 when I received an e-mail from the group Anonymous Online. I still have no idea how they found out about our situation but I did not contact them as Bret believed. They claimed they were going to take care of the bullying and went after Bret. I had hope but they made the situation worse by enraging Bret who opened more blogs (below samples of but a few) .
I opened more sites in a desperate response and effort to reclaim my Google search. Renato worked with a Valentino relative in Turin to translate Affairs Valentino into Italian and Facebook forums came into being with the primary forum then run by Dom Caruso.
Dom Caruso ordered a copy of Affairs Valentino, and it was through this exchange he and Renato became friends. Renato also then connected with a Valentino scholar and historian living in Castellaneta, Professor Aurelio Miccoli.
In the summer of 2012 , Ms. Pickford declared bankruptcy in Utah and found a lawyer to represent her with the help of her family. Terhune fought to prevent her from having the 100,000$ plus interest judgment he held against her from being dismissed and arrived in Utah for the court hearing. He came with a friend, Stella Grace and a copy of the then expired bench warrant which was taken out on Ms. Pickford more than a year prior.
At that time I had little communication with Ms. Pickford as we had no further business together. She did stay in touch regarding the bullying and on the day of her bankruptcy hearing in Utah she sent me a long email as an account of what took place. Terhune and Ms. Grace chased Ms. Pickford and her father through the courthouse as Terhune yelled, “You're going to jail!' repeatedly. He was attempting to serve her with a citizen's arrest on the expired bench warrant. Ms. Pickford turned on her phone and captured the chase and the heated exchange between her father and Terhune. She sent this video to me.
When Ms. Pickford's father asked Terhune what it would take for him to stop harassing his daughter, he answered, “She has to guarantee Affairs Valentino will never happen again.” At that time Ms. Pickford had no authority over the book and we terminated our business affiliation a year earlier.
Ms. Pickford's lawyer later informed her in a draft of a letter that Terhune's court house chase of his client constituted a violation of the Violence Against Women Act.
Ms. Pickford did declare bankruptcy and settled with Terhune for a payment of $2500. and I do not know if this was paid.
Throughout 2012, the attacks continued in a nightmarish flood of posts which greeted us every day. We responded with more videos and the names of David Bret and Tracy Terhune became synonymous.
When the Italian translation of Affairs Valentino launched, an opening was organized in Turin and we hired a body guard.
We also consulted a lawyer about how to stop Bret. The defamation lawsuit was organized.
With the daily horrors from Bret's many sites, from Terhune's Valentino Wept blog, the Fraud Files growing more obscene and unthinkable in content, I grew fragile emotionally and Renato captured their posts every day heroically.
In August 2012, Terhune seized my blog, Affairs Valentino blogspot's URL, which I closed to avoid having Bret open blogs about my family members. He impersonated me in the initial posts he made, posting in the first person:
This was a horrifying development for me, as from then on anyone Googling my book or my name would find this. Terhune's motive was clear as he bragged how he was getting my web traffic.
Bret continued posting everyday on multiple sites, linking them all to their matrix of hatred and obscenity.
The themes they were primarily focusing on in 2012 were to convince the world that Ms. Pickford and I were one and in the least allies, that we had warrants on us, were wanted criminals and that I had a history of cocaine abuse. Affairs Valentino was portrayed as being banned for homophobia, our old age mocked and we were called shady characters who forged documents. There were also constant taunting posts about my father's death from Bret and in anonymous articles posted by the “team” on The Fraud Files as they posted and linked as "the team".
By the end of 2012, Affairs Valentino second edition was available through our website, The book was out in Italian and Renato was negotiating a book with Aurelio Miccoli, The Infancy of the Myth.
Terhune was pretending to be me on my blog under my book's title and destroying any remnant of hope for its future and Bret was trying to bait me into suicide.
In 2012, Terhune and Bret created their monster and Renato and I were overwhelmed. More days than not I was unable to see what they posted and debated whether to let them have their final kill of Affairs Valentino and take the book out of print. But there were by then copies of the book dispersed and there was no turning back.
Every time I posted anything, personal or business I knew it would be the subject of a new hit piece within hours.
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