http://www.boston.com/ae/books/articles/2007/06/07/crime_novelist_tries_to_w ard_off_internet_attacker/ By David Mehegan, Globe Staff | June 7, 2007
Massachusetts novelist Patricia Cornwell is the first to say that life has been good to her. From small-town beginnings in the mountains of North Carolina, she has gained world fame and wealth beyond her wildest dreams with a string of huge-selling crime thrillers. But dreams-come-true can have their nightmare side, and now some of the fear a reader finds in Cornwell's books is showing up in her life. She moved three times in three years and now lives near Boston, and she seldom leaves the house without a bodyguard. "I've been stalked before," she said in an interview, "but I never felt there were people who wanted to harm me." For the past seven years, a man has been filling websites with a relentless stream of vitriolic accusations against Cornwell: that she is a "Jew-hater" who follows Hitler, bribes judges, is conspiring to have him killed, and is under federal investigation. He has made no direct threats, and for a long time Cornwell ignored him. Last month she sued him for libel, hoping to shut him down, and Tuesday a federal judge ordered him to pull his attacks off the Internet. Celebrities have been criticized, harassed, and harangued before. What is unusual about this case is both the persistence of the person behind the attacks and his use of the Internet, which has allowed him to lash out at his target from beyond the reach of the courts. The case also highlights a dilemma of the Internet age: how to defend against libel when the defamer can so easily hide. The story began in early 2000, when Cornwell was living in Richmond, Va. She was about to publish "The Last Precinct," her 11th novel about medical examiner Kay Scarpetta, when she learned that Leslie R. Sachs, also of Richmond, was putting stickers on his self-published novel, "The Virginia Ghost Murders," calling it "The must-read gothic mystery that preceded Patricia Cornwell's newest bestseller." In letters to Cornwell's publisher and agent, Sachs -- after reading promotional material for "The Last Precinct" -- accused her of "copying" his ideas and alleged that she "appears to have made use of my plot and storyline." Cornwell sued him for libel in federal court. US District Judge Robert E. Payne ordered Sachs to remove the stickers and stop using her name to promote his book. ...
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