Here’s something weird that happened to me. Please bear with me, it’s a long story, but hopefully one that will stand many of you in good stead should you encounter an internet stalker like Jenny Frankfurt.

“Matthew”

In February of this year, I acquired a new follower on Twitter. His name was Matthew Spitz. Private chef, nice guy, happy to chat. I followed him back and very occasionally we’d have conversations via private direct messages (known as DMs). A few various exchanges of tweets followed over the next weeks. Matthew tweeted at me when he was skiing in Switzerland. Matthew tweeted at me about my cat. Matthew tweeted at me about our shared contempt for David Cameron and Donald Trump. Matthew tweeted at chef friends that we both followed on Twitter. Matthew tweeted about Batman and films I’d seen and movie stars I liked and motorbikes I’d owned and restaurants I knew. This new friend and I had a lot in common, it seemed.

At one point in May I had a fairly serious personal crisis. Being a friend, Matthew reached out to me at my lowest point, and I confided in him about how much I was struggling and how distressed I was. I opened up to him about things I hadn’t told my girlfriend or parents. He offered himself up as a friendly, compassionate ear just when I needed it most. Matthew was a good guy.

Several weeks later I received a DM out of the blue from Matthew:

Matthew Spitz (@matthew_spitz) 08/07/2013 03:01 Hey John – have you found a job yet? Might know of something, not sure it’s what you want.

The job turned out to be an offer of a PA position for him. Matthew was opening a restaurant in London whilst recuperating from heart surgery. His mother was moving house, and his new girlfriend was now pregnant. Over the course of several messages he told me that I was overqualified for the job but it would be good to get me back on my feet following the issues I’d had in the months before. He said it could possibly lead to other things in the restaurant world – a world I have a keen interest in, as Matthew well knew.

It was one of the best leads I’d had in years – an opportunity to get a foot in the door of an industry I’m passionate about, with someone who seemed like he’d be a cool person to work for. With the prospect of a fresh start in front of me, I could barely contain my excitement. I told my dad. I told my girlfriend Jen. Wanting to make a good impression on my potential employer, Jen and I sat down and began to research Matthew Spitz and his restaurant project.

Oddly enough, we couldn’t find anything on Google, so we began to trawl through his Twitter timeline for clues. His tweets painted a portrait of quite a bloke: independently wealthy; looking to open a restaurant in the autumn in an exclusive area; jet-setting between LA, NYC, London; famous mates and a hot girlfriend who was newly pregnant. Who wouldn’t jump at the chance to work for someone like that? My elderly dad got very, very excited: ”Grab this opportunity!” The detailed email of the job sounded even better.

I can see now, with hindsight, that in each and every instance Matthew reached out to me. Matthew initiated all conversation, Matthew proactively engaged me, Matthew generously extended the job offer out of the blue. All contact with Matthew was completely and wholly unsolicited by myself. It’s the sort of thing you only realise much later – that this was a trap being set very specifically for me.

Because, as it turns out, Matthew Spitz was a complete fiction. Having been tipped off by a fellow tweeter, some simple research unravelled Matthew Spitz within minutes. Literally minutes. All 5 months and 1500 tweets worth – each and every tweet completely fabricated. Well, that’s not entirely accurate – because a lot of what Matthew Spitz wrote and posted did exist… it was all just stolen from other people. Photos of Matthew were a real person. Photos of his girlfriend were a real person. The food photos and places he went were all of real food and real places. But Matthew’s entire life as portrayed on Twitter was a fairytale. If, in reading Matthew’s timeline, he seemed a little too good to be true, it was because he was.

The @Matthew_Spitz Twitter account has since been deleted but the entire Twitter timeline has been archived here: Matthew Spitz tweets

Who would do such a thing? Who would deliberately create a fake persona in excruciating detail in order to offer the lure of a non-existent job to someone who was already struggling? The answer was surprising, but inescapably obvious.

Jenny Frankfurt

For three years, I’ve had a Twitter/online friendship with a woman named Jenny Frankfurt, a self-proclaimed script consultant / agent living in Hollywood. Over the years, she and I had what I thought was a genuine, if long distance, friendship, and chatted frequently on and off Twitter about our personal lives and interests. As with any friend, I grew to depend upon her as a source of support and encouragement, and throughout the course of our relationship I revealed quite a lot about my personal circumstances – job-searching and my hopes and dreams of eventually becoming a writer. I trusted her explicitly with things even some of my real friends didn’t know.

And, for some unfathomable reason, she used her insider knowledge of my aspirations and vulnerabilities to deceive me with the kind of dramatics you only hear about in movies. She did so with no regard or respect for my feelings, dignity, or personal status.

Once it became clear that “Matthew Spitz” was a fake, figuring out that it was Jenny Frankfurt was pretty easy. She’d left a trail of clues behind like breadcrumbs, almost as if she was hoping to get caught. Things that appeared in Matthew’s timeline were things she’d blogged about. The people she’d appropriated photos and identifying features of for “Matthew’s” timeline were US television personalities she followed on Facebook and Twitter.

Ongoing bullshit

Matthew posted over 600 photos over a 5 month period. As far as we could tell, over 90% of the photos had been appropriated from elsewhere: a meal Matthew had cooked in June turned out to be a photo from a blog in 2009; Matthew’s sister “Georgie” turned out to be the Bond actress Izabella Scorupco, star of Goldeneye; Matthew had been walking in Kensington “Park” and taken some pictures of the deer, who had apparently commuted in for the day from Richmond.

The inconsistencies and incongruities were all things that fit with her background. And, as the smoking gun, “Matthew” had specified he lived on Elvaston Place in Kensington – which just happened to be the same address that Jenny Frankfurt has registered her company, “Highstreet Management“.

Matthew also said that Kensington was “south west London”, y’know, like Tooting.

So, I called her on it. I told Matthew to “Give it up, Jenny.” Matthew flipped out and told me to “Get a job.” I forwarded that DM email to Jenny and my phone rang immediately. It was Jenny. I had no inclination to answer it – but the voicemail she left was so utterly weird I’ve kept it ever since as an MP3. Oh, hang on a minute, here it is: Jenny Frankfurt’s voicemail.

But even with a whole dossier – literally, a dossier – of evidence against her, Jenny couldn’t and wouldn’t admit it. Instead, she began to up the ante and went into full defence, denial and attack mode, accusing me of harassing her, saying my research was proof that I was “obsessed” with her, and claiming that I must have “hacked” her computer. Which of course, was just surrealism of Daliesque proportions – someone who’d strategically constructed this completely false identity full of details and nuance to stalk me for five months, was now accusing ME of being mad. Yes, what a mental I was for googling.

There was one admission though: she did admit to being another account called @mywonderfulgirl:

The mywonderfulgirl account has since been deleted but the entire false Twitter timeline is archived here: @mywonderfulgirl tweets.



The Pledge – Jenny Frankfurt’s admission

Exasperated, I included the woman who was supposedly Matthew’s pregnant girlfriend (the US tv personality) in a tweet. Jenny sent me a message almost immediately. “Stop. You win,” it said.

I didn’t really feel I had won anything, but Jenny – at long last and after abusing me so much – finally admitted that she was Matthew Spitz. However, she blamed me. She said her behaviour was my fault. Apparently I had to think about the “part I played” in her deception. That’s right – somehow I was to blame for her stalking me. For 5 months. (Now 6.)

No one ever hacked her computer, of course. No one ever needed to. People leave trails on the internet a mile long, and people who’ve made enemies are even easier to find. As it turns out, Jenny Frankfurt has certainly made enemies – some simple googling revealed that since 2006 she’s been on forums and social media sites in multiple guises, under a wide variety of accounts, leaving behind a whole swathe of bitter acrimony and bad feeling. I post cat pictures, talk to chefs, complain about politicians, and tweet food pictures. (Because I am a tosser, yes, fine.)

Jenny Frankfurt’s false accounts:

Devilfish10 (old Twitter), Highstreet_Mgmt (old Twitter), tryingtrue (old Twitter), supertrue (DenDen), SamJones (DenDen), calrafe, Matthew Spitz (deleted fake Twitter), mywonderfulgirl (deleted fake Twitter), cwill45 (fake Twitter), fashionablegal1 (fake Twitter) readerofwriting (current Twitter)… …the list of identities and deceits goes on and on. We uncovered these but there are almost certainly more – probably dozens more.

A disturbing thing to look at is a sample snapshot of her 3 admitted Twitter accounts’ tweets in chronological order.

(The whole sheet is worth having a look through – but it’s big and more than a little dull… Jenny Frankfurt combined accounts)

After the weeks of evidence and arguing to get Jenny Frankfurt to admit she was Matthew Spitz, Jenny suddenly took it upon herself to write an “amends” email, in the tradition of the Al-Anon programme of which she is a devotee. The email itself was pretty weak sauce – the very epitome of the non-apology apology. But, in spite of the deliberate and calculated cruelty, at this point I was prepared to let it all become so much water under the bridge. I just wanted done with it all.

Here are Jenny Frankfurt’s tweets, archived for your pleasure:

Jenny Frankfurt’s timeline

Jenny Frankfurt’s history

So, that should have been the end of that.

Another pertinent piece of information may be helpful here: Jenny Frankfurt claims to have been, for a few years, the manager of Geri Halliwell of Spice Girls fame (more likely she was just an assistant). I’m not sure under what circumstances their relationship ended, but since that time, Jenny has consistently and continuously used social media to talk about (and at) Geri. On one particular Spice Girls forum known as DenDen, she was such a contentious presence that she was banned under two separate user names (one being SamJones, which Jenny herself has admitted – alt link) and, as recently as last year, she continued to keep tabs on the forum and contact its users in an aggressive manner.

Delving into all those identities revealed a pattern – which should have served as a warning – of someone who has an insatiable appetite for attention, and like a many-headed hydra spawns alias after alias after alias… but when challenged or caught, lashed out. Jenny can’t seem to help creating drama and then when the tables are turned, going on the attack with a vengeance, threatening criminal charges and lawsuits with abandon. In retrospect, I really should have seen this coming.

This is, of course, exactly what has continued to happen since. She’s maintained the assault of texts, tweets and emails, ratcheting up the volume whenever my attention starts to wane. Every time I’ve stopped replying there has been a predictable escalation which swiftly follows.

If Jenny Frankfurt hasn’t threatened to sue you, it appears that you’re in a very exclusive club: a lost Amazonian tribe; Abraham Lincoln; a small dog in Yorkshire called Bernard. Have a look at Jenny Frankfurt’s Google results (ignore the ones that relate to this blog). It’s pretty telling.

The Turn – abuse, threats, harassment

Since Jenny’s farcical “amends” email there was then a series of sustained, random, and vitriolic text messages – and one stage I received 14 texts (unanswered) in a row. Jenny Frankfurt regularly phoned me at 2, 3, 4 in the morning. She sent emails threatening to press charges and file proceedings. (For what exactly? I’m not sure when being the victim of a stalker became a crime.) I am changing my phone number in the next week. Hopefully I will then get some semblance of peace.

When I failed to respond, the Twitter attacks on my girlfriend began. Jenny defamed me behind the scenes, accusing me of “blackmailing” her and threatening to harm her family. She’s enlisted gullible allies on Twitter to troll Jen and me on her behalf, the most prominent of whom is @citygirlnomore – who is Beverley Cooney of Kettering, UK. (It’s worth noting that Kettering isn’t really the City, unless you’re counting Sutton Coldfield. In any case, Bev seems to think “the City” is Mayfair.)

If you want to see the extremely nasty things that Beverley Cooney had to say, her entire archive is here: @citygirlnomore archive This is the type of person we’ve been trying to deal with for the last week. She’s tried to delete all her posts, but the archive reveals the type of despicable person she really is. Have a look and judge for yourself.

Jenny even called the real people she impersonated and told them that I was trying to damage their professional reputations…

The Truth Will Out

On 14 August, a woman named Gail left a comment on this post. It’s still there, below. Gail is the woman that “Matthew” stole the photos of and told me was his girlfriend. “He” told me he had just got her pregnant. The real Gail wished to set the record straight:

THANK YOU for posting this. I want to add that the Tweet Keeper Spreadsheet is a log of tweets that Jenny edited recently prior to your post. Many of the tweets regarding Matthew Spitz’s relationship with his private nurse and now pregnant girlfriend have been deleted. I know this because I saw them. I am the REAL nurse whom Jenny stole photos of to bolster Matthew Spitz’s fake life. http://nursegail.com Jenny Frankfurt was a Facebook friend-of-a-friend of mine and admitted to seeing a pretty picture of me on my friend’s timeline. Jenny reached out to me multiple times as herself (via Facebook and Twitter) and offered her management services. All the while she was stealing my friend’s Facebook photos of me to use in Matthew Spitz’s internet fantasy life. Matthew Spitz (using a UK yahoo email account) contacted me through my blog () and made a pass at me. I did not respond, but recently I asked a friend to track the origin of the IP address and it originated in Los Angeles. Jenny lives in Los Angeles. So while she was hitting on me as Matthew Spitz via my blog, and using my public blog/internet photos and my friend’s stolen Facebook photos to build a fake romantic relationship, Jenny was also trying to connect with me in real life. So I can commiserate with you and your story. Thanks again for publishing this post.

Supposedly the best defence is a good offence, and it’s a tactic Jenny Frankfurt has fully embraced by libelling and defaming me as often as possible. I was caught on the back foot, having never dealt with this kind of cyberstalking before, but the experts call it an “extinction burst”, and it’s a textbook case of stereotypical stalker behaviour.

@TryingTrue – now breaking bad

I could ask about all the “whys” in an attempt at getting some closure, but the truth is I know now I will never get the truth from her. Her truth, if there is one, is so far hidden – so long gone – behind all the dissembling and false identities and attention seeking, that I’m not sure she even knows who she is any more. As her “real” Twitter identity (at the time), @tryingtrue is possibly the most ironic username she could have chosen. The truth is that, ultimately, it’s far too frightening for her to confront reality. In the wake of all the severed relationships with friends, family, clients, acquaintances and neighbours, all the grievances and contretemps she has blogged about, all the friction she seems to find herself in over and over again on the internet… the common denominator is always Jenny Frankfurt.

So instead she retreats behind a wall of penitence – she meditates and “makes amends” and works the 12-steps and heaps scorn and judgement on anyone who doesn’t feel the need to forgive or absolve her. It’s all damage control coated in a socially acceptable veneer of addiction and rehabilitation jargon. It’s a common enough trope in the entertainment industry these days: act out without consequence, perform penitence without conviction or authenticity. There is no responsibility taken at any point.

The Prestige – the end

I’m moving on now. This will be the last I will say on the matter – a festering sore needs to be exposed to light and oxygen in order to heal. But I won’t forgive her, and I won’t forget. As Jenny herself put it on her own blog, I can “look at this person and their illness as I would a look at a ‘sick friend’. I certainly would not need to forgive a friend for being ill, right? Ill by their own deeds; their behavior a true sickness of betrayal, lies, self-importance, of unawareness, of selfishness, of entitlement… I cannot abide these actions and therefore, I cannot ever find a sense of forgiveness“. (This quote was from her old blog, which she deleted. About 3 hours after deleting that blog, she set up a new one, here: http://jennyfrankfurt.wordpress.com/)

Jenny Frankfurt can hide behind anonymity in her 12-step meetings, but on the internet… I’m afraid there is no such thing. So I am putting my story out there on my blog, with the specific proviso that anyone who asks will be told what she’s done, and shown any of the evidence they wish, so that they might make up their own minds. I imagine there are plenty of people out there already who are pretty unhappy with being deceived – so maybe she’ll be too busy making amends to pull this rubbish on anyone else. (Eight people – some on condition of anonymity – have now been in contact with me about Jenny Frankfurt and her doing similar things to them. So, I am not the first, but I am the first to refuse to be legally bullied and intimidated into submission.)

I want people to know what happened to me and I want those of you who’ve been deliberately misled to have all the information. (I’m not mentioning the names of the celebrities she impersonated / used the pictures of, because their names shouldn’t be associated with Jenny Frankfurt’s deception.)

Now, unlike some of the idiots throwing specious threats of litigation about, I have taken legal advice prior to publishing this post. Certain parties may wish to consider that. I have all texts, tweets, emails and frozen webpages from the relevant parties archived. Let this be the end of it. (Sigh. See below)

Litigation updates

LEGAL UPDATE 4: 02 December 2014 – WordPress sent me a DMCA takedown complaint from… Jenny Frankfurt. Happily, they have rejected it. (Thanks guys!) I will publish the email WordPress.com sent me in full in due course. Next court hearing (number 3) is on 8 Jan 2015. Keep an eye on my Twitter account. For more information on Section 107 of US copyright law, please see http://www.copyright.gov/title17/ and http://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl102.html.

Jenny Frankfurt will be aware of the following: part of the DMCA complaint process includes sending the complaint, in full, to the party alleged to have posted infringing material (ie, me). Making false representations in a DMCA complaint is considered perjury under US federal law. In order to make a DMCA complaint, you must explicitly agree that you understand the implications of making a false statement.

LEGAL UPDATE 3: 28 October 2013 – Jenny Frankfurt has issued proceedings against me in Central London County Court. I am fighting this. I will not be updating the blog until the conclusion of the legal process. At that time I will publish a full and comprehensive update. I apologise for the interruption and for any frustration.

LEGAL UPDATE 2: 02 October 2013 – Simon Malcolm Smith‘s law firm, PSB Law, has been dissolved. He is now acting as a sole practitioner. Worryingly, his SRA registered contact telephone number appears to be – according to a straightforward Google search – a pub.

LEGAL UPDATE 1: 31 August 2013 – I have received the following takedown notice (at 15:38 on 31 August) via email from one Simon M. Smith of PSB Law. He is a solicitor in the UK and his firm is – somewhat surprisingly – “retained” by Jenny Frankfurt (see update 2).

To PSB Law: I will be very happy to remove anything in this blogpost that is untrue. Please feel free to point out any factual errors or inaccuracies and I will correct the post.

(nb – Jenny Frankfurt’s lawyer has not replied to this offer – Dec 2014.)

Letter and transcript below.



Dear Sir,

Jenny Frankfurt

We have been retained by Ms. Frankfurt.

We refer to your blog entitled ‘Jenny Frankfurt — Internet Stalker’ published on the internet at fewerpedantic.wordpress.com.

The blog, which has succeeded in its intention of causing considerable alarm and distress to our client, is actionable under the Protection from Harassment Act 1997.

Quite separately, it is self-evidently defamatory; amounts to an invasion of our client’s Privacy; and contains numerous copyright infringements.

The threats that you made in advance of publication of this blog are further evidence of a course of conduct which on no basis could be deemed to have been reasonable. Those threats in themselves also amount to harassment.

Whatever justification you consider you have for publishing the attack upon our client, there is no justification in law.

We invite you to disable the blog immediately. You can disable the blog on the basis of no admission of liability. Should you decline to do so, this will be relied upon as Aggravation in legal proceedings that will then follow. If it is necessary to commence proceedings, then they will be pursued with vigour and an Order will be obtained for Damages and Costs against you and for which you will be liable.

That is the position in Civil Law. You should also note that your actions (and any continuing actions) may render you liable under Criminal Law in two respects.

Section 1 of the Malicious Communications Act 1988 provides as follows:

1) Any person who sends to another person–

(a) a letter, electronic communication or article of any description which conveys–

…(ii) a threat

is guilty of an offence if his purpose, or one of his purposes, in sending it is that it should… cause distress or anxiety to the recipient.”

Your threat to publish the blog, which threat you then carried out, are relevant to the above.

Similarly, a course of conduct of harassment can be a criminal offence, as provided for under section 2 of the Protection From Harassment Act 1997.

For the avoidance of doubt, if the blog is not taken down by 3pm on Tuesday 3rd September, then our instructions are to issue the proceedings against you.

Please acknowledge receipt as a matter of urgency.

Yours faithfully,

[illegible squiggle]

PSB Law LLP

The unamended blogpost can be read, in full, above. Thanks for reading. John.

————

8 January 2015 update – Jenny Frankfurt’s case against me has failed. After 16 months. SIXTEEN MONTHS of her lies, harassment, abuse, and much, much more.