What happens when women strategically abuse a system designed to protect them for personal gain? In this article, I offer a real-life example that should break your heart. It’s the story of how a serial female abuser of men in North Carolina is using a system designed to protect women in order to extort money, housing, phones and creature comforts from professional football players like Rodney Austin, a client of mine, whose life now stands in ruin…but who I hope gets a second chance by virtue of this article.

Like so many victims of domestic violence, Rodney was slow to understand that his abuser was using threats, physical violence, mental abuse and manipulation to exert control over him. But unlike most domestic abuse cases, this woman had one additional hammer she could use to hurt him: she knew she could end Rodney’s career with just the mere accusation of abuse against him because of the NFL’s ‘zero-tolerance’ policy against domestic violence, and she used this tactic to extort money, housing, cars, phones and more from Rodney during a period of more than a year.

Rodney’s abuser used every classic tool of abuse and manipulation against him, except this time – and this is hard for our society to comprehend for some reason – it was a female attacker against a male victim, a fact that seems to have confused and distorted our legal system and our public conscience.

And Rodney is not the first NFL player this serial abuser has done this to (more on that below).

Rodney’s near-daily hell included coming home to this woman verbally berating him and physically assaulting him, which Rodney came to understand was all designed to induce him to physically retaliate so that she could sue him for assault. She knew exactly what she was doing to him. If you ever have the chance to know Rodney, he’s a soft-spoken person generally and he never did take the bait, instead resorting to things like barricading himself in his bedroom and calling me in the hopes that I could help him understand why this was happening to him. Like so many female victims of assault, Rodney often wondered whether he’d done something to deserve the abuse, or whether he could do something to stop the abuse. Like many who suffer such domestic violence, it took him longer than most would expect to realize that the answer is always ‘no’.

Over time, Rodney came to realize that he had to remove himself and his child from this situation, and he started to work with me and a local family lawyer in his hometown to help him make responsible plans to achieve a new life away from his abuser. But we never had the chance to responsibly change his family situation.

Why? Rodney’s abuser used a twist in the laws of North Carolina that I had never heard of before: after the police would not arrest Rodney following her calls to them due to lack of any evidence of abuse, she went to a magistrate judge and said she felt threatened. In North Carolina, a magistrate judge can issue an arrest warrant solely on the word of one person with no other evidence whatsoever. Want to ruin someone’s life? Walk into a magistrate judge’s court room in North Carolina and say “That person threatened me” and they will be arrested immediately. No probable cause, no police reports, just the word of the person in front of the judge.

And that is the moment Rodney’s life was ruined. He turned himself in, as any responsible person would, and though he feared the justice system it was my undying faith in the rule of law that led me to confidently tell him I felt he would be vindicated. In all the press reports at the time, I am quoted as saying this would be resolved quickly and in Rodney’s favor, and I genuinely believed that. After all, there was no evidence whatsoever except for a broken cell phone and her word that he’d hurt her. I was so wrong.

Rodney did break the woman’s cell phone – which he had bought and paid for – during yet another instance of her rage and abuse, where she once again pulled out the phone and threatened to call the NFL, the Detroit Lions and the police because, as she always said, she knew she could ruin his career at any moment…all she had to do was lie. So, this time, Rodney broke the phone and then locked himself and his baby in his room while the woman pounded on the door to get to him. The phone was the only evidence that was tangible at trial. And the trial was overseen by a spineless judge who, like the NFL, the Detroit Lions, and our society at large, was desperately afraid of being on the wrong side of a domestic violence issue, and so she took the easy way out.

How was the judge spineless? There’s another quirk in the North Carolina system, where Rodney could be ‘guilty’ but put in a diversion program where, once he completed anger management courses, the case would retroactively be dismissed. In other words, the judge could have it both ways – she could be seen as tough on domestic violence today but hedge just in case Rodney was actually innocent (and he was) so that he’d be ‘not guilty’ months later when no one was looking. Of course Rodney passed all his anger management classes – he’s one of the least angry people I’ve ever known – and the case has now been retroactively dismissed as a result. But judges cannot have it both ways; they serve justice blindly, and tough cases require tough legal minds who are unafraid to of decisiveness.

Once Rodney was ‘guilty’ in the press, the Detroit Lions immediately ended his career. They, too, chose the easy way out which was to dismiss all connection to one of their own players in order to prevent any unwelcome tarnishing of the league’s supposed ‘no tolerance’ anti-domestic violence image. They were willing to utterly devastate the life of a good young man in order to protect themselves. All the more frustrating, the Detroit Lions were just honored for being tough on domestic violence as a result of their actions against Rodney without any regard for whether their actions were warranted at all. It is this very circular and shallow system that facilitates and encourages devious female abusers to harm and extort young men like Rodney.

And here’s proof that scheming women know how to use the league’s no tolerance policy to abuse NFL players…

Rodney Austin wasn’t the first NFL player abused and extorted by this woman. Following Rodney’s trial, a new social worker, Trescha Mcllwaine, was assigned to Rodney’s family. As she was reviewing Rodney’s file, she noted the name of the woman and immediately let Rodney know that the same girl had done the same thing to another young NFL player, Tyrell Sutton, in remarkably similar ways: verbal and mental abuse as well as physical assault, with constant threats to call the NFL, his employer and the police if he did not continue to do as she demanded.

The NFL and our legal system has created a system where devious women can take advantage of the so-called ‘zero tolerance’ environment against domestic violence for their own personal gain. They use it to threaten unsuspecting young men, knowing that the threat alone will scare them into acquiescing to their demands. These young men know that even the mere mention of domestic violence surrounding their name can end their careers and damage their lives, and so these men just spiral downward, acceding to the extortion with no way out. They know that the NFL will banish them and then pat themselves on the back for their actions, with little more than a cursory look at the true nature of what has occurred.

(Unless you are a star and the NFL can make money on you, in which case they just let you right back into the league)

So now, Rodney Austin, who was undrafted out of a small college and had to work hard to earn his way onto an NFL team, cannot find a job in the NFL and, given that he was not a famous star in the league, has no money to support himself or clear his name…but this serial abuser is out there likely hurting another young man at this very moment. Where is the justice in this?

We need every reader’s help right now: Rodney can reclaim his life and stop this woman from continuing her abuse of both men and the justice system with the help of a fantastic new attorney, but the cost will be $15,000 to file charges including Assault and Battery, Abuse of Process, Defamation of Character and Malicious Prosecution. Justice requires that we stop this woman from abusing the laws and systems that are meant to protect actual victims, and we can help Rodney reclaim his life, his reputation, and his career.

Please help by donating any amount to Rodney’s Domestic Violence Fund by clicking here: https://www.gofundme.com/RodneysFund

NOTE: We know it’s an odd request, but both Rodney and I have exhausted our last dollars trying to get him and his family through this crisis. He deserves to get his life back, but neither he nor I can afford much else. That’s the reason for the request, we’ve got to hire an attorney to see him through the next part of the exoneration process.

To contact the writer, Mark Magazu, please email mm@atlasstrategies.com.