Received a Defamation Threat from Ari Hinnant

I have heard of nutjobs on the Internet but I have to say this is my first close encounter with one.  Four weeks ago, I had the misfortune of encountering an online scammer named Ari Hinnant, who allegedly is a best-selling author that wanted to give to the world.  She made these outrageous claims of books sales that no reputable author could ever accomplish anonymously.

You can read about the two prior encounters here:

Anyhow, you would think she learned her lesson and keep a low profile.  So, on a LinkedIn Group, she makes this post in a group full of experienced publishers, authors, editors, writers, etc.  Everyone knows she is running a scam because of what she wrote which I have pasted here.

Tips on Selling over 100,000 books for the fearless author

Hello fellow fearless writers,

I’m going to tell you step-by-step how I sold over 100,000 books. I will make this process effortless.

1. Create an explosive book. The title must be off the hook! The book and title must be irresistible! Inside the book, the first page my have 10 plus bullet points one what is inside the book. Once again, they must be irresistible. Once your book, website and publishing’s company is complete its time to hit the street.

2. Book hundreds of radio interviews.

3. Advertise on TV, cable, radio, etc..

4. Most importantly, own all your work. Create your own publishing company. Do not give your power or money away.

If you want me to show you how to sell tons of books… let me know. I will show you how to sell over 250,000 books in 18 months or less. Effortlessly.

Contact me at: ari@changeyourlife.org

Tell me.  Does that smell like a scam or not?  And get this, the LinkedIn Account holder is named Bliss L. but the message says to contact Ari!  Yet another fake name and account.

Anyhow, everyone is piling on with wise cracks of her claims.  I share my prior investigation and the moderator Judy (a consummate publishing pro in her field) thanks me.

So, I get this email tonight from an “arnold lewis”.  It is a bit sick but it proves what a nutjob Ari is.

I was going to buy a book from you… then I read that you are a child rapist on Linkdn.  Now I know why you write such mean things about people.  I’m going to spread the word that you are a pedophile.  I will make sure that every social network knows about your past.

Let’s assume for a minute that what she said was true.  Who the heck says to themselves, “Gee, that looks like a great book.  I think I want to buy it. BUT, she “reads” through some LinkedIn post that the author is supposedly a child rapist?  Imagine that.  LinkedIn is where a whole bunch of networking and business discussions are going on and someone just conveniently discovers a little-known “news flash” about a child rapist.

So this “arnold lewis” supposedly has just met me and now feels the need to spread word about me being a pedophile.

The investigator within me decides to look at the email headers.  This is what I find.

Return-Path: <arnoldlewisjr@gmail.com>
Received: from psmtp.com (exprod7mx264.postini.com [64.18.2.118])
by new.ascendbeyond.com (8.13.1/8.13.1) with SMTP id n9G8IWZi023651
for <matt2@ascendbeyond.com>; Fri, 16 Oct 2009 04:18:32 -0400
Received: from source ([209.85.212.177]) by exprod7mx264.postini.com ([64.18.6.14]) with SMTP;
Fri, 16 Oct 2009 08:18:32 GMT
Received: by vws7 with SMTP id 7so986318vws.18
for <matt2@ascendbeyond.com>; Fri, 16 Oct 2009 01:18:31 -0700 (PDT)
DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed;
d=gmail.com; s=gamma;
h=domainkey-signature:mime-version:received:date:message-id:subject
:from:to:content-type;
bh=AjyFk7niymcVApoCZlNk74TfIsmIK1tCY8ea++XKkx8=;
b=tH+dHLaTqT52JpiM+hCYI3HsfhFwDcaOTLLN2RKHvO8H2HEquP52wikr8lzCf0Kt3a
NSOJNJtIYWDjVHqy4p/Xpcuyey0MGHv3TkJukzqA5AX2uuR3hf3MML4NF4s3/DQHkcNu
sFOHXJRh48ggnfogFd/tAb7RPZLl92mGGwbr4=
DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; c=nofws;
d=gmail.com; s=gamma;
h=mime-version:date:message-id:subject:from:to:content-type;
b=q6l0ZtZRa7LySCOr7WKyhCn+KeIgJKH0NXNqvIk7D7JS3wC/mx2QAJ3HiJdmv/yc3E
szDYvLvbpAM5D6Xypf75++5VqBQY1DM4rJk6HZ79W1WzvWVmDo0sKyIJ0NSm4vVwmMqR
h92+JYWw+vgo4OBWY0gxpv3LKpRPXdVvadpQA=
MIME-Version: 1.0
Received: by 10.220.89.4 with SMTP id c4mr2533203vcm.38.1255681111739; Fri, 16
Oct 2009 01:18:31 -0700 (PDT)
Date: Fri, 16 Oct 2009 03:18:31 -0500
Message-ID: <34c023970910160118q2a7f64c6wdb92a6970e07c999@mail.gmail.com>
Subject: Sex offender
From: arnold lewis <arnoldlewisjr@gmail.com>
To: matt2@ascendbeyond.com
Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary=0016363b925e9dccba0476090aaa
X-pstn-neptune: 0/0/0.00/0
X-pstn-levels:     (S: 5.72949/99.90000 CV:99.9000 FC:95.5390 LC:95.5390 R:95.9108 P:95.9108 M:97.0282 C:98.6951 )
X-pstn-settings: 1 (0.1500:0.1500) cv gt3 gt2 gt1 p
X-pstn-addresses: from <arnoldlewisjr@gmail.com> [db-null]
Received-SPF: pass (new.ascendbeyond.com: domain of arnoldlewisjr@gmail.com designates 64.18.2.118 as permitted sender) receiver=new.ascendbeyond.com; client-ip=64.18.2.118; helo=psmtp.com; envelope-from=arnoldlewisjr@gmail.com; x-software=spfmilter 0.97 http://www.acme.com/software/spfmilter/ with libspf2-1.0.0;

Now, I am no expert here but I do some poking around to check where this email is coming from.  Clearly, it is being sent from a Gmail address (which Ari is infamous for using). What do you think the chances the email sender’s real name is “arnoldlewisjr”?  I would have to say “arnold” is “ari”.  If you study her writing patterns and languaging, it is consistently bad English!

Anyhow, based on past behavior patterns, it did not take long to figure out who it was.  For the record, this was my reply to Ari Hinnant and “arnoldlewisjr”:

Ari Hinnant,

You are fooling no one.  You are once against impersonating someone.

If you decide to post these false allegations, you better believe that I will be tracking you down personally and hold you responsible for such actions.  I suggest you watch yourself.

You are the one who has been scamming people.  Jennifer Cole knows it, another editor knows it, and I know it.  All of your messages will be traced I promise you.

Matthew

I truly hope I don’t have to write about this again but when someone is going to make some outrageous statement about me that has no basis in fact, you have to fight it even if it is a nutjob.  And the best way to fight it is to just make it public to defuse it.

======

Ari Hinnant Posts (I don’t want to propagate this crazy 2009 incident any further but to protect my online reputation, I have to list these links for people that don’t know the my unfortunate history of calling out this online scammer.)

 

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