A Canadian woman, Nadir Attas, who wrote thousands of online posts defaming her alleged enemies, was arrested by police in Toronto on Tuesday. A Toronto police spokesman said he was charged with offenses including harassment and libel.
60-year-old Ms. Atas has waged an online war against dozens of people in recent years, falsely accusing her of being a scammer, thief, sex devotee and pedophile. His goals included a family that had appointed him 30 years earlier; Her mortgage lender; The lawyers fought the court as well as those who represented them; And family members and colleagues of those people.
The arrests and charges followed a New York Times article published on January 30, which detailed her campaign of harassment and defamation, illustrating the devastation that a person can wipe out thanks to the currencies in the hands of big tech companies like Google .
Police spokesman Caroline de Cloit said Ms. Attas was charged with 10 counts of spreading misinformation with intent to harass, defamation, and alarm. “It was a long, complicated investigation involving many victims,” she said.
Last month, a Toronto judge ordered Ms. Atas to stop her online attacks against the 45 people who had filed a defamation suit against her. But posts about the plaintiff and their families continued to appear on sites such as Badgirllyports and theaters.
Ms Atas, who has told The Times that she had suffered from mental health problems in the past, did not respond to requests for comment about her arrest.
The targets of Ms. Atas’s attacks – including Guy Babcock, whose family hired him at his Canadian real estate office – tried for years to get law enforcement to file police reports in the United States, Britain and Canada . His victims lived. This is the first time Ms. Attas has faced criminal charges filed this week in relation to her online posts.
Police recently showed interest in the case, said Christina Wallis, a lawyer who has been involved in litigation with Ms. Attas since 2008 and was the target of her online attacks.
After The Times published her article, which Ms. Wallis quoted extensively, a site called gossipblaze.com emailed her, stating that she believed Ms. Atas would be “not the hundreds of posts, if not the tens.” Were spamming our submitted form. “
“Almost all are from the same IP and we thought it might be helpful to pass this information on to you,” the email mentions Internet Protocol addresses, a unique identifier used by a computer or computer network.
Ms. Wallis shared the email and IP address with a group of victims who had previously contacted police. One of them, Luke Grollue, determined that the IP address was likely generated from a computer in a hotel in East Toronto. Mr. Groleau shared the information with a lawyer, who said he alerted police to Ms. Attas’ whereabouts.
