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Yesterday we published a blog about Erik Hutchinson, a self-proclaimed “innovator” and “entrepreneur” in the vaping industry, who is currently slumming in a roach motel in Danvers after an altercation with his ex-girlfriend, Christina Tsatsis and her family left him homeless and stranded in Massachusetts. He alleges that $10k in video equipment was stolen by Tsatsis, and blames the Lynnfield police for a purported cover-up. I don’t doubt that a chick who walks around looking like this:

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did in fact withhold some of the sleazy vagrant who has been bumming at her parent’s house for month’s belongings for either drugs or spite, or maybe both. Totally plausible. However, Hutchinson’s incessant, bizarre posts and his implausible self-inflating claims led me to take a closer look at him, and what I have uncovered is a proverbial Pandora’s box of deception, fraud and ratchetry. There’s a lot here, and to effectively process all this information, it merits a multi-part series.

It all starts with Erik’s predictably defensive and deflective reaction to the information we uncovered yesterday, that quickly went way off the rails.

Lost his job as an officer for child rape – that’s a slightly new flavor of baseless defamation. And it wouldn’t meet the ratchet status-quo, of course, unless Erik followed up with the same old tired links from Google, which substantiate precisely 0.0% of his insane allegations against Aidan Kearney.

Alrighty then.

Shortly after this point, it appears Erik came to the realization that literally no one on the 300-plus comment thread was defending him at all. In fact, numerous people starting speaking up with their own stories about Erik’s nefarious debauchery. Fortunately, “David Grint” showed up to quickly became Erik’s most vocal – and only – defender.

I think we all know where this is going.

Most notably, there is no online record of a “David Grint” from Lynnfield, MA ever actually existing.

And for not being Erik Hutchinson himself, “David” sure seems to know all the of the intimate details of Erik’s life well,

Details and anecdotes about people Erik has met, but “David” claims to have never met:

Reposts Erik’s private Facebook videos in comments:

Has Erik’s personal probate/child custody documents in his possession, printed out and highlighted for Erik’s case:

And just seems overall extremely invested in Erik’s life and reputation. He really loves this guy. As much as Erik loves Erik, in fact.

Oh, and the only other time David has shown up on our page? Approximately 5 weeks ago, to defend Christina Tsatsis’ honor on this blog.

Which is also when the profile was created. Go figure.

I was told by numerous people who knew Erik that using sock accounts to stroke his own ego and defend his own bullshit is pretty common behavior for him. It’s not even necessary to take anyone’s word for it, though. I searched online and was able to see evidence of such myself. Take, for instance, this Reddit Profile, Allinvapelyfe, who only ever posted and commented defensive, complimentary posts about Erik Hutchinson. Literally nothing else, ever.

Well, “nothing else” isn’t entirely accurate, actually….because there was that one time he fucked up, and advertised his business on his sock Reddit account.

Whoops.

Talking about yourself the way that Erik does, in third person, is weird and creepy. Doing so in public, under paper-thin aliases, and thinking no one will notice? Even more so. Then again, it’s easy to see the necessity in this practice. As we’ll see as this unfolds, many, if not most, of Erik’s lofty claims about himself are dubious at best – flat-out fabrications at worst. To lend himself credence, he and his various online alias often point to old, fluff-piece PR articles such as this one from the Wall Street Journal, that portray him as a successful business owner and innovator. But, as we’ve seen with Landon Steele, some people are shrewd and manipulative enough to craft this image using the shroud of social media, despite evidence existing to the contrary. And in much like Landon, there is an abundance of contrary evidence lurking below the polished social media photos and aggressive self-marketing campaigns. Take, for instance, Erik’s “wildly successful businesses”. Records clearly reflect that any venture Erik has started has unilaterally and decisively failed without mere months of inception. Starting with AmeraVape, that troubling, deceptive startup that first introduced Erik into the vape industry. As we touched on yesterday, court records reflect that the business was built by using a confusingly similar brand name to a pre-established and trusted business, that lead to financial benefit for Hutchinson and his partners, and ruin for the victimized business.

This isn’t speculative by any means, as it was affirmed in a court order that came with a hefty judgement of $400,000, and a stern order barring Hutchinson and associates from ever using a derivative of the brand name ever again.

Not that AmeraVape was the resounding success Hutchinson claims, anyway. According to court documents, Hutchinson decided to start up AmeraVape with partners Jesse McClain and Kyle Kruger in January 2014. They incorporated the business in February 2014, and by April 2014, a mere two months later, the business was dissolved.

The next iteration of the business, Ameramatic Vtech, LLC, was similarly ill-fated. Legally formed the very next day following AmeraVape’s dissolution, Ameramatic Vtech filed just one report in August 2014 before falling into FTB (filing requirement or tax non compliance) suspension.

Erik claims to currently own Hutchinson Design and Engineering,

but that is a blatant lie, because that business no longer exists as of 2016, having also fallen into FTB suspension in equally short order.

The other business he purports to have owned, Avid Lyfe, is in reality owned by his sister, and has legally been so since it’s inception. We’ll get in to that more later on, as that is its own story. As we’ll see next time, Erik rarely enters into a relationship, business or personal, where he does not end up taking advantage of, defrauding and then burning the other parties involved, leaving a trail of financial and emotional devastation in his path. We’ll also take a closer look at Erik’s claim to the title “the Modfather” and reported innovation in the vape industry, and why evidence suggest that’s also a gigantic misrepresentation, or perhaps, outright lie.

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