A British Columbia man named Patrick Fox has created a website whose sole intent, he says, is harassing and defaming his ex-wife, posting photos of her and her home and alleging that she’s a stripper and a white supremacist. He told a news outlet he’ll only stop when she’s either dead or “destitute and homeless.” Police are apparently uninterested in pressing criminal harassment charges against him.
Fox’s ex, Desiree Capuano, lives in Arizona; she told CBC that she’s been unable to get either Canadian authorities or the FBI to help her, and can’t afford the legal fees to fight Fox in civil court. She said, too, that her ex’s “sick fixation” on her is terrifying, and that he once told her his “ultimate goal” is to goad her into committing suicide.
Fox, meanwhile, cheerily admitted to CBC that he’s trying to harass his ex until she is either dead or her life is in ruins.
“She ruined both of our lives,” he told the news outlet.
The details of the couple’s breakup are fuzzy: Capuano told CBC that the two split up in 2001 and that Fox then hid their infant son from her for years. She says they reunited in 2011 when Fox went to prison for falsely claiming under oath that he was American.
Fox also claims that Capuano “abandoned” their son until 2011 and then “abducted him.” He was deported after his prison sentence was completed, he told CBC, and from then on began plotting ways to ruin Capuano’s life.
As the news outlet notes, on the website he’s posted an exchange between him and his son, in which he tells the now-teenager that he would have “no qualms” about killing the boy’s mother. He told CBC that by that, he means he’d have “no moral dilemma” in killing Capuano, but doesn’t actually want to kill her: “There is nothing illegal about wanting to harm someone as long as you don’t act on it.”
An Arizona judge issued a protective order preventing Fox from sending Capuano emails, CBC reports, but didn’t order the website taken down. In the request for the restraining order, Capuano wrote that Fox, who sometimes also uses the name Richard Riess, told her he planned to hire someone to have sex with her “in order to obtain ‘intimate’ photos which he intended to put on his harassment website.” She also said she’d received an email from Fox about the conversation between him and their son about killing her: “Riess told G that he would in fact kill me if he would not face jail time for it.”
Fox placed those and other emails on the website; they serve as stellar examples of what kind of person he is. In one from July 2015, he says he’s put up photos of her new home and her “presumed boyfriend:”
Desiree: I’ve updated some of the information on your site. Let me know if anything is inaccurate. Namely on the home page and on the News page. I was sure to include your new address, a picture of your presumed boyfriend, and a picture of your new home. I still need to confirm your employment - once I do then I’ll update that information too. It’s good that you’re living in such a small community now. Much less anonymity. You’re reputation will undoubtedly spread quickly.
He also repeatedly accuses her of being a “white supremist” (you mean “supremacist,” Patrick, you dolt), and says he hopes “a pissed off Mexican” comes to her house to harass her or worse.
Canadian prosecutors discussed charging Fox with criminal harassment but ultimately decided not to, in part, they told the news outlet, because the exes live in different countries and thus Capuano couldn’t reasonably have an “objective fear” for her personal safety.
In a blog post, Fox writes that he doesn’t care about this new media attention, because, again, his sole goal is terrorizing and trashing his ex:
And, let’s say this story actually got aired on the local news; let’s say the broadcaster also put it on their website; I suppose it’s inevitable that I’ll run into some people on the street that will recognize me and say “Hey, you’re that asshole with that website! Why don’t you leave that poor woman alone?” Okay. Fine by me, I suppose. I probably don’t care too much about their opinion, anyway – what with them being strangers and all (for those who don’t know me – I don’t like strangers). And, there’ll be the occasional folks who will see me and say “Hey, you’re that guy with that website about your ex-wife. Good for you. Fuck that bitch!” And to them I’ll say “Indeed! Fuck that bitch. Fuck her in her dirty, nasty, over-used, worn out, catcher’s mitt of a snatch.”
In the United States, there are federal laws against harassment and stalking that could theoretically be used to prosecute people making clear threats online. In practice, that doesn’t really happen.
The website is the top result for Capuano’s name.
Contact the author at anna.merlan@jezebel.com.
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