Tinder date turned one Texas man's life into a living hell

One Tinder date three years ago cost Joe Lazarus his reputation and his job. Now he's taking the woman to court. One Tinder date three years ago cost Joe Lazarus his reputation and his job. Now he's taking the woman to court. Photo: Harris County District Court Photo: Harris County District Court Image 1 of / 12 Caption Close Tinder date turned one Texas man's life into a living hell 1 / 12 Back to Gallery

A Houston man is seeking $200,000 from a former Tinder date he claims defamed him online and cost him his job.

Joseph Lazarus, 32, broke up with the woman he matched with on Tinder in 2014 and since then, he claims the woman has spread lies about him online and to two former employers, according to Harris County District Court documents filed Wednesday by Lazarus' attorney Joseph Mathew.

The name of the woman is being withheld because she had not been notified of the lawsuit against her at the time of publication. A request for comment has been made with the woman.

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Lazarus' relationship with the woman lasted about three months after the two matched on Tinder. During that brief time, he called their interactions normal. The two would go out to dinner and even attended a Houston startup convention together since Lazarus was working at an oil startup at the time and she was an aspiring entrepreneur.

Lazarus claims the two just didn't hit it off, so he decided to break up with her in person. She wanted to remain friends; he did not. Within a few months after the breakup, Lazarus said he started receiving threatening messages from her. At one point he received a message from her demanding $10,000 from him or she would tell people he raped her.

The threats became even more real in the fall of 2016. That's when Lazarus was called into his bosses office. Lazarus was working for a high end automobile broker in Houston at the time. The boss had seen posts about Lazarus on thedirty.com, a user-submitted gossip site, and couldn't risk his company's reputation.

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The posts called Lazarus "creepy" and someone who "would have sex/rape fat chicks just to amuse his friends."

Lazarus was fired that day.

"I feel terrible. I feel like I'm living in a nightmare I can't escape," Lazarus told Chron.com.

One of the first things he did was retain legal counsel. The court documents filed Wednesday include text messages the woman allegedly sent to one of Lazarus' friends. The messages claim that Lazarus would buy her dildos instead of flowers and that he was a "rapist, liar, cheater."

"I don't know what she's talking about. I certainly didn't mail her any sex toys," Lazarus said.

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Mathew has taken on more than a dozen revenge porn cases in his six-year career. This is the first he's had where the alleged victim was a man.

"There's no way Joe Lazarus can defend himself against these baseless allegations," Mathew told Chron.com. ""If anybody finds themselves in a similar situation and I encourage them to speak out and find legal representation. Everybody has the right to be left alone. That's all Joe Lazarus is asking, it to be left alone."