FIGHTING BACK: The Sex Slander Case of Chantay Sewell v Middle School Dean Philippe Bernardin Will Continue, Says 2nd Circuit Judge Robert Sack

The 2nd Circuit rules that the case should continue as a case of "first impression" on the two-year statute of limitations in a hacking/cyber-bullying case.

Circuit Revives Lawsuit Over Hacked Facebook Account

NY Law Journal

A woman who claims her ex-boyfriend altered her Facebook account and then posted malicious statements about her sexual activities has had her lawsuit revived by a federal appeals court.

Chantay Sewell's case against former boyfriend Phil Bernardin had been thrown out on statute of limitations grounds by Eastern District Judge Arthur Spatt.

School dean spread sex slander against ex-mistress: lawsuit

By Selim Algar,  NY POST, January 3, 2014

The married dean of a Queens public school is being accused in a lawsuit of stealing a female colleague’s online identity after she dumped him — using it to sexually shame her on the Internet.

Chantay Sewell, 39, filed the $350,000 federal suit against Robert Van Wyck Middle School Dean Philippe Bernardin — who once appeared on “Sesame Street” — for allegedly sending the ugly messages from her accounts.

“It was horrific,” Sewell said. “He’s a bully. No one should have to go through what I went through and I just feel like I had to stand up for myself.”

The suave part-time actor — whose IMDB.com page also lists the soap opera “One Life to Live” as a credit — allegedly began a relationship with Sewell at the Jamaica school after telling her his marriage was broken, the suit claims.

But shortly after Sewell severed the relationship, the educator began a campaign of cyber-defamation, according to the suit filed by her attorney, Harvey Mars.

“Bernardin used Sewell’s Internet accounts to publicly post private information about her and to communicate with third parties while posing as Sewell,” the suit states.

In August 2011, Bernardin, 42, sent an e-mail message to her contacts list that “contained malicious statements toward Sewell regarding certain sexually transmitted diseases and sexual activities,” the suit states.

In March 2012, he used Sewell’s Facebook account to broadcast a message to her circle of friends and family that also contained sexual smears, according to court papers.

Sewell obtained the IP addresses linked to the defamatory posts — and found that they were allegedly coming from a computer belonging to Bernardin’s wife, according to the suit.

Bernardin, of Floral Park, declined to comment on the suit.

Facebook Hijacking Case Revived by 2nd Circuit

By ADAM KLASFELD

LINK

 

  MANHATTAN (CN) - In a case involving sex, cyberbullying and the statute of limitations, a schoolteacher filed her lawsuit just in time to accuse of her ex-boyfriend of taking over her Facebook account to post obscene messages, the Second Circuit ruled on Tuesday.
     The court warned in its opinion that the case demonstrates the "troubling" predicament of victims of hacking who are unable to learn the identity of their attackers within two years.
     Last year, schoolteacher Chantay Sewell filed a $350,000 lawsuit accusing her ex-boyfriend Phil Bernardin of hacking into her AOL and Facebook accounts to barrage her friends and family with sexually explicit slander.
     The Brooklyn Federal Court case bore all the hallmarks of salacious tabloid fodder.
     The New York Post reported that the defendant, Phil Bernardin, was a dean of a Queens public school with a lengthy acting career that boasted a credit on "Sesame Street," and court papers accused him of sending "malicious statements" to Sewell's loved ones about her supposed "sexually transmitted diseases and sexual activities."
     Beneath the surface, a more arcane legal dispute brewed that would create a new precedent of interpreting the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act and Stored Communications Act.
     Both laws have a two-year statute of limitations.
     Sewell said she tried to trace the electronic fingerprints of her intruder after finding she was locked out of her AOL account on Aug. 1, 2011, and again when she noticed a password change on her Facebook account on Feb. 24, 2012.
     Her lawyer Harvey Mars said in a phone interview that she sought the identities through a subpoena of Verizon Internet records.
     Sewell easily met the two-year window in her lawsuit against her ex-boyfriend's wife Tara Bernardin in early 2013.
     While that case ended in a settlement, Sewell's separate lawsuit against Phil Bernardin hit a bump with U.S. District Judge Arthur Spatt, who ruled last year that she filed the case too late.
     On Tuesday, the Second Circuit agreed this was true as to the AOL accounts, but not the later Facebook intrusion.
     Writing for a unanimous three-judge panel, Circuit Judge Robert Sack acknowledged that the laws' speedy statute of limitations could present "troubling consequences in some situations."
     "Even after a prospective plaintiff discovers that an account has been hacked, the investigation necessary to uncover the hacker's identity may be substantial," the opinion stated. "In many cases, we suspect that it might take more than two years. But it would appear that if a plaintiff cannot discover the hacker's identity within two years of the date she discovers the damage or violation, her claims under the CFAA and SCA will be untimely."
     Sewell's lawyer Mars called this window a "very draconian time frame" in a phone interview.
     "Two years is a very, very short amount of time," he said. "If they are unaware of who the hacker is, they still have to initiate a lawsuit."
     Still, Mars said that he and his client were "ecstatic" that the appellate court treated the intrusions separately.
     "What I'm happy about is that the Second Circuit, within those constraints, applied it in a liberal way," he said.
     In his ruling, Sack called the statute of limitation issues involved in the case a "matter of first impression in this circuit."
     Echoing this, Mars noted that his client's lawsuit is "a leading case now."
     Bernardin's attorney did not immediately respond to a request for comment. 

 

FIGHTING BACK: The Case of California Teacher Linda Johnson

This will be the start of my series called "Fighting Back". We will show that when - or if - you are wrongfully accused of something, you must address the false claim immediately.

Now the point we want to make is, fighting back 'properly' is subjective, based upon the many circumstances which are present. Sometimes a person put into this vortex of injustice needs help. That's what Union reps are for, except in many cities in the US where this has proven to be useless.

Then, you call an advocate that you trust or you go by your own gut feeling. Every case is different, and fighting back is sometimes risky but always the right thing to do, in our opinion. What you need to do is quickly assess all of your available options and pursue the one that is right for you. Always try to document everything, and be diplomatic as much as possible, but strong. You mean what you say and say what you mean.

Do not let anyone alter your career or your character profile without your informed, willing consent.

Betsy Combier
President, ADVOCATZ
betsy.combier@gmail.com

After a parent screamed at her, this first-grade teacher called the police

Jay Matthews
LINK

What should educators do when they are unfairly penalized for something they said? This is what has happened to Rafe Esquith, a nationally celebrated Los Angeles fifth-grade teacher. He is still banned from his classroom because he told a joke in class that few people would consider the least bit offensive.

Rafe Esquith

Teachers are threatened with administrative punishments far more often than we know. They often react as we would if our bosses came after us. They are frightened, confused and ready to take the easiest way out.

What happens if they reject those instincts and instead get tough?

[L.A. district continues to persecute one of the nation’s best teachers]

Linda Johnson, a retired California teacher who frequently contributes to the washingtonpost.com comments page for this column, told me what happened when she decided not to bow her head and take unfair criticism from her supervisors. Instead, she called the police, with surprising results.

“About 10 years ago, my student teacher and I were walking my first-graders to the computer lab,” she said. “One little boy started to yell and jump around, so I asked him to go back to the room with the student teacher. In a few minutes, the boy’s father came along to check his son out for a dental appointment. When he saw the boy crying, he went ballistic and came running after me. He cornered me at the entrance to the computer room and screamed at me in a menacing way in front of my students. He waved his arm at me in a threatening way.”

He warned her never to do it again. It looked like the man was going to hit her. “I was very frightened for my students and was careful not to provoke him further,” Johnson said.

Fifteen minutes later, after school was dismissed, she went to the principal’s office and found the father reporting her to the vice principal. She screamed at the man: “If you ever threaten me in front of my class again, I’ll go to the police.”

Assuming the student teacher’s university would advise her to stay out of it, Johnson had the young woman write down immediately what she had seen and date and sign it.

The next day, as Johnson expected, she was called into the principal’s office. The vice principal also was there. They told her that they were putting a letter in her file for screaming at the man.

“Excuse me,” she said. “I am the victim, and I will write the letter. I am also going to file a report with the police.” When the principal, not expecting this, tried to retract what he said, she walked out of the office and went straight to police headquarters. She signed a complaint against the father, accusing him of “disturbing school.”

She sent a letter of complaint about the way she was treated to the superintendent, the teachers union president, the principal, the vice principal and every member of the school board. She asked for letters of apology within 30 days. By the time the police case came up, she thought she might have been too hard on the father and told the court that she didn’t think he realized he was committing a misdemeanor.

“Don’t worry about that,” the court commissioner said. “He knows his felonies from his misdemeanors.” The father was indeed a felon. The student teacher did not appear, so the case was dismissed. The school district banned the father from the school and transferred his children to another campus.

“I was just another innocent teacher who was going to be victimized for being a victim, but I fought back, and I’m so glad I did,” Johnson said.

Teachers who have had such experiences will understand how good Johnson felt when the two administrators gave her their letters of apology. She got the same good vibe a year later when the vice principal and the principal both left the school.

This won’t work in all such cases, but it is good for teachers to know their options. Maybe going to the police won’t work, but it might help to let a news organization know when a teacher has been done wrong.