1404: The Pests part 4

Speaker: This is part 4 in the pest series. By now, you know that this series is not for kids. Heck , it's not even for some adults. If you're uneasy with graphic language, discussions of sexual assult, racism, you name it. This one is not for you. Even before I publicly released these episodes on my main feed, the Pests got ahold of the audio files and posted it in their forum. There were more than 700 replies, commenting on my interview with Nikki Robinson and Patrick Tomlinson. Within a few days, the administrator of the o-n-a forums, who is only known as Quasi101, sent me an email. I've converted his written response to audio using voice-to-speech AI.

Henry: To whom it may concern, This is the current administrator of the o-n-a forums. I realize that by being anonymous you can't verify my identity yet, but you can email me and I can provide more verification as required. You list yourself as a journalist on your twitter bio. I hope you take that title seriously. I’m inclined to give you the benefit of the doubt in not contacting me, by assuming you weren’t sure how to get in touch. To that effect, I’m reaching out now. Are you going to take your claim of journalist in earnest and hear both sides of the story? You’ve taken the word of a judgment debtor who is currently facing contempt for refusing lawful court orders, at face value. You interviewed people on your podcast that accused me personally of serious crimes, with no evidence. As an aspiring journalist, do you think it would be unethical to allow unverifiable claims on your podcast without also allowing the other person any type of rebuttal? I trust you’ll do the right thing here as, with all things considered, I have recognized your efforts to be unbiased regards, Admin.

Javier: I responded, "I would love to get your side of the story. Shoot me a rebuttal "

Henry: Well I'll be damned. I apologize for the original tone in my email if I came across a bit "curt" so to speak, there have been several publications who have no interest in my perspective. You've stumbled onto an insane story here and its complicated for someone following for years, let alone someone trying to give an unbiased perspective in 90 minutes. Unfortunately, I can't give any audio, though I hope to give my side in the future at some point. There are legal concerns as well as my own safety. I can provide an account facts backed by court documents and archived social media. You don't need to take my word for anything, and, you shouldn't. I don't want to go down the route of going point by point through the podcast to refute points. I feel like that will be contentious and led to unnecessary conflict when you've shown magnanimity yourself. You've been fair so far I'd like to extend that trust in this way.

Javier: So I shot Quasi, the administrator a list of questions. My first question was, why do you keep operating the forum if you feel your personal safety is at risk?

Henry: Well, it's multifaceted. It's not just about my own safety, although that is a major component. I operate the forum because I believe it serves the function to preserve comedy that is taboo. There is artwork, parody songs, and content that would be lost. The threats of violence by Patrick Tomlinson pose a real risk. Currently, I am confident about my anonymity, if that calculus changes that could potentially affect my ability to continue operating the site.

Javier: Then I asked... are you or anyone else in your forum responsible for the swatting?

Henry: I can understand why you'd ask this, but there's tricky phrasing here. The person answering is in a trap. If they answer indignantly, they seem defensive. If they answer too cavalierly, they come off as not caring. Imagine your boss asks you "are you stealing from the company?". The shift here is that there's any reason to believe you were stealing in the first place. If you answered your boss , "what evidence do you have of that", even if you were innocent of stealing you come across to your boss as defensive. I wanted to point that out for context, but to be fair to you, I won't completely evade your question. There is no reason to believe anyone here is involved in any capacity. I've received no reports regarding discussions of this. There are rules in place to ban anyone encouraging this behavior. As for myself, I can say with certainty that I've I have never called the police, or any agency to direct them to Patrick Tomlinson's house, his relatives, or his friends. I've never contacted him, his family, or his friends. I've never interacted with him in any way. I've never directed anyone to do that. Any mention of doing anything of the sort is swiftly banned.

Javier: I asked Quasi how he can be so sure no one in his online community is responsible for the swatting?

Henry: This seems to be a more nuanced question about certainty. To answer the question, there's an assumption of how we use the word, certainty. How certain are you that you locked your door when you didn't forget anything at the supermarket? You've created the list, double-checked it, thought about the last time you forgot something, and taken into account why that happened. Consider a parent who is leaving their child home by themselves for the first time. You've laid down the rules, and explained the punishment. You come home and see no evidence of anything wrong. Are you sure they didn't have 80s sytle party and refilled your grandma's urn from the firepit outside before you came home? No. But you don't have any reason to think otherwise.

Javier: I'm not sure that analogy works. But let's keep going. I asked, what would it take for this feud with Patrick Tomlinson to stop. Here's what Quasi had to say about that.

Henry: I see why you would think that, but your question frames this situation as being a feud. There isn't one. I set up a comedy web forum. I’m running a lawful website. He defaulted on a payment, refused to pay a court-ordered judgment, and may be held in contempt at the end of August. To answer your question…there’s nothing to end. He pays his court-ordered debt and I run my website for as long as I have the time and inclination to do so.

Javier: Quasi, is referring to the fact that Patrick Tomlinson lost the case against Quasi and was court ordered to pay his legal fees. As of this recording, Patrick Tomlinson hasn't made a single payment. And if he continues to refuse, he could face additional financial penalties and could even go to jail. I'm Javier Leiva and this is PRETEND... Stories about real people pretending to be someone else.

Speaker: segment one

Javier: I've been in touch with several observers of the forum. They point to instances where Patrick made threats to hurt people with his gun, threats to rape ssomeone's mom. They told me that Pat is a serious Asshole and is probably responsible for doing the swatting himself. They sent me security footage of someone spraying graffiti on Patrick's motorcycle. They tell me, look at the video, it's clearly Patrick doing it. Almost all of these people who post on the Opie and Anthony forum are annoymous. All except for one. His name is Daniel Mullen and he goes by the online alias Somerville Dan. Patrick Tomlinson says, and I quote, that Dan Mullen is among the most obssessed criminals. Unlike most of the pests, Dan is very much out in the open. He even hosts his own postcast where he devotes aa copius amount of time to mock Patrick Tomlinson. Now, let me be clear. Dan is not a spokesperson for this group. In fact, he himself has been booted from Quasi's Opie and Anthony board. So I hopped on a call to get his side of the story.

Sommerville Dan: Yeah, so, you know, I was a fan of the Opium Anthony show back in the 1990s. But yeah, I was a member of the, the Reddit forum back when it was the Rian Anthony Forum. And really it was like one of the funniest places on the internet. There's all these jokes and characters, and the interesting thing to follow was as the show, the Ian Anthony Show kind of went downward. It kind of was on this de. People started turning against the show and making fun of the, the hosts and making fun of the, the guests and picking at, you know, making memes and jokes about So it really became less of a fan Reddit subreddit and more of a just nasty jokes, you know, things like a standup comedian would do when they're roasting someone like a big roast

Speaker: A POLITCIAL/DISTASTEFUL

Javier: you have these anonymous folks on this forum, really. They, they have, they are fixated on Patrick Tomlinson and everybody in his orbit, and they enjoy the torture that Patrick Tomlinson has experienced. Would, would you agree with that or

Sommerville Dan: Um, to an extent. Um, I, I don't know that it's so much enjoying the torment. I think it's just the, the getting the reaction. It's like a real life Truman show where you've got this avatar. I know you mentioned on a previous podcast, Patrick, like almost represents almost like a character of like this online democratic party kind of, you know, person who parrots all the it's like right outta central casting. it feels like a character. Like it almost feels like he's not real. these people that text him or tweet him, and, and I'm not gonna condone that necessarily, but he, you text him and then he responds right away and he has like copy paste responses. He says, you're going to prison. He has these funny little, you know, things that he says. I mean, it's, it's like you're, it's like a game really. if he had just, and he could still do this too, by the way, if he would just stop responding and stop feeding off of that negative energy, then we wouldn't be talking right now. But he, he, he is, for whatever reason, and I'm not a psychologist, I don't want to play that game, but for whatever reason, he just can't let it go. And he keeps kicking the hornet's nest.

Javier: But you would admit that this forum has doxxed people. this forum has, some of the members have possibly contacted Tomlinson directly. I mean, would you agree that, that it has gone from a joke to posting, you know, personal information online and contacting him and maybe even physically being in the same vicinity as him?

Sommerville Dan: I, I, there's definitely a line, um, you know, and I myself may have crossed it on, you know, in kind of some of the. Instigating with Patrick, myself. So I, I'll take a little bit of the blame, there needs to be a separation between the texting and the tweeting, the pranks and the swatting.

Javier: Yes, I've seen an overwhelming amount of folks posting that they find this hysterical except for the swatting.

Sommerville Dan: I would say there are very few topics that these people on the forum agree on universally. I would say to a man, the condemnation of the swatting is probably the most universally held belief of anyone. I don't think you'll find maybe, maybe one or two people and they would probably be, you know, talked down to that, find it funny or acceptable in any way, shape or form. it's unfortunate the swatting because you know, that, that makes it seem like, okay, there's a criminal thing going on here. Whereas really there's two rules that I think most of these rascals, I like to call them abide by. It's like, be funny and do it within the realms of, you're not like breaking the law and swatting is neither of those swatting. It's not funny and it's criminal. I'm 99.9% sure that it's not, the swatting is not directly related to the o n A forms. People. Yes, they have done awful things. They've texted pictures to Nikki and her mom and Pat and things like that. You know, you can argue those things. The, you know, the morality or the, the, whether that's right or wrong, but the swatting, I think is where the line gets drawn. And I, and I am supremely confident it did not come from the o a forums people.

Javier: Well, but I have seen, and I, I, I should go back and look at this, but I've seen people like salivating for body cam footage, like waiting for the, they, oh, they wanna see Pat's reaction when he, they pull him outta his house and at gunpoint and stuff like that. I mean, there, there are people that genuinely enjoy that there, right?

Sommerville Dan: one of the questions you asked have you requested the body cam footage? And I have, I've actually requested it with the Milwaukee Police Department because, you know, maybe there's a, an entertainment or a kind of a, a gawing factor of it, right. You know, you see something on the side of the road, you wanna see what it looks like. Um, but there also, I, I mean, I would love nothing more than to have whoever's responsible be brought to justice and, you know, getting the information out there. Maybe we can make a, a joke if he's like on his porch and it's, it, you know, it looks unfortunate, but at the end of the day, I think we all would love to see it, it end.

Javier: so if it's not anyone on the o n A form, then who's doing this? I mean, we did mention Tors swats, but like who's making these orders?

Sommerville Dan: I mean, that's the, that's the million dollar question. Now I will say it, it only takes about 10 minutes to go onto Patrick's Twitter account and see how he talks to strangers. he creates enemies. He, he jokes that he's prides himself on getting on fights online and, and being a provocateur. There's hundreds of people that know about him. So, um, it could, you know, it could really be anyone. and then, you know, I'm just gonna throw it out there. And it's the one thing you can't rule out. There's the chance that he could be doing it himself. 'cause he's, he's a, a person that likes getting attention and he also can kind of kill two birds with one stone by saying, okay, here are these people that make fun of me. I mean, I listened to your interview with him. He doesn't even open up the potential that it could be anyone but us. Uh, he doesn't even talk about the culpability really, of the person doing it or the fact that it could be someone else. he just, assumptively puts it on us for, you know, I don't know why he's so sure of that, because there's really no direct evidence other than the fact that people kind of, you know,

Javier: Yeah, but I mean, come on. If, if there was a whole online forum devoted to busting my balls every day and sending, you know, discussing pictures to my wife and her family and, and this and that, and I mean, wouldn't that be an obvious conclusion? Whoever's swatting me is

Patrick: they definitely be a suspect. Absolutely. when they say they don't support the swatting, they are lying. These people are pathological compulsive liars. They are manipulative and they are covering their asses because they know that if they go on there, on that site, because that site's still public and unbelievably so, I mean, the F B I is watching all this. If they go on there and say, yes, I love swatting, well, guess what's gonna be at fucking door? Like, that's the fastest way to shut down that website. And they all know it. So, no, they don't just, they don't just love the swatting. They are doing the swatting. One of, at least one of them is we don't have anybody else obsessing over every part of our life. Yeah. Who else would do this to us? It's them. It's only always been them.,

Speaker: NIKKI is a sympathetic character

Sommerville Dan: Dan Mullen insists that this could easily end if Patrick stopped his media blitz and stopped responding to every message and every tweet. I think he enjoys the attention. I don't think he likes the, the way he's getting the attention, but I think he likes the attention. I think if we stop, if people in general stopped bugging him daily like this, I think he would miss it in some ways because I think he, it gives him a purpose and an attention that he can't find through other avenues. But is it really that simple?

Javier: But why Nikki? Why, why Nikki? Why get her involved in all this? When she doesn't respond, she doesn't engage. You know what I mean? Like why, why is she tangled up in this whole mess?

Sommerville Dan: I find Nikki to be a very sympathetic character. I think she's married to someone who is a little bit on the narcissistic side and may have some other issues that he's dealing with, and she's kind of along for the ride I don't think people engage too much directly with her. I think people have kind of poked fun at her online, you know, related to Patrick.

Javier: You don't think that they've contacted her business? Customers try to make her her professional life a living hell. I mean, the way she described it.

Sommerville Dan: uh, some, some people have done that. Yeah, I think people left comments on like the Google thing or whatever. most of the attention is focused on Patrick. Patrick and Niki disagree.

Niki: many, they've impersonated me, they've harassed me, they've done the contact form thing. They harassed my mother, they threatened to swat me, they threatened to rape me. I, if I'm a sympathetic character, they are terrible at being sympathetic. That's pretty

Patrick: illustrative. I mean, Dan himself attacks Nikki's business constantly. Like he sends messages through her contact form threatening her, threatening more bad reviews.

Niki: know, yeah, I mean, I've pretty much identified that Dan is one of the main people that harasses

Patrick: me. You know, he's, he's one of the ones who in, um, who Impersonates Nikki's mother on the all these contact forms, Dan. Dan is a liar. Dan is a manipulative sociopath, and he has attacked her. He's, in fact, he may have gone after her more than, he's gone directly after me, Legally...None of this matters because Patrick and Niki tried to sue Quasi the forum administrator, and 60 annoymous users of the site in court and lost. And as a result, Patrick and Niki have to pay the prevailing parties attorney fees which are around $50 thousand dollars. In the previous episode, Patrick said he gave me the impression that he was going to repay the debt in monthly payments. But so far, Patrick and Niki are refusing to pay. What changed? I asked Patrick about this decision through text. He told me, "it's not a choice. We don't have $50k. So i'm going to jail for not having enough money to pay a ransom to terrorists." More about this... after the break Here's what I don't understand. I get it. Niki and Patrick have been put through hell. I can't even imagine living one day in their life. Let alone having to deal with this day in and out for 5 years. I have tremendous sympathy for them. And I understand why they tried to sue those who they believe are attacking them. They took a risk and lost. Now a court has ordered them to pay the other party's legal fees. Whether they agree with the court's decision or even law for that matter, they're on the hook for this money. So why refuse to pay? What's the strategy here? If they don't pay, they could be found in contempt of court and could end up in jail. Here's Dan Mullen again.

Sommerville Dan: so as you probably know, Patrick sued the O N A forums. He so sued 60 John Doe, including the Administrator of the Forum. And

Javier: you included in that, by the way?

Sommerville Dan: um, I was named as one of the John Doe a tweet that I made that was pretty innocuous, that I would not say it was defamation, but, So at the time, uh, you know, I I, you're probably gonna ask, was it, is it personal? This with Patrick? At the time it was because I thought I was gonna have to get a lawyer and I was gonna have to go to court over a tweet that I made And the biggest mistake that he made in lawsuit was his fixation on going after the admin of the site. Quasi 1 0 1 or whatever name you wanna use for him. And he ma named him John Doe one. And they basically focused on going after him, primarily thinking that he would just give up information about the users, whether it be IP addresses, email addresses, and then he could, they could use that information to individually sue people for the comments that they made. But as we know, the judge honored the motion to quash the subpeona and ordered Patrick Tomlinson to pay the other sides' legal fees. And then Patrick would go online. He'd say, I'm not paying my, you know, he'd go on podcasts, he'd say, I'm not gonna pay my harassers. And he fought it and fought it and fought it. So then fast forward two years or two and a half years later, he still hasn't paid any of it. Here's the thing... both Patrick and Niki signed a legal document, under oath, promising to pay back the debt gradually under a repayment plan. The payments are made to the trustee who then pays back the other partie's attornyes. Now legally he's in a situation where he's really in a corner and there's, there's really no easy way out other than, you know, paying s , if I was him, I'd show up with a certified check and start paying. Right, right. Then otherwise, um, you know, it, it's, it's kind of uncertain where it goes. So I asked Patrick about this.

Javier: the first time we talked,you and Nikki were talking about being on this subscription payment plan, you know, where, where you had to pay the legal fees of the opposing party and you were gonna be on this subscription plan. But sometime between the, our last conversation and this conversation, it seems like things changed or maybe you have, uh, like a different strategy.

Patrick: Well, we're not gonna discuss our legal strategy because that's still evolving here. Um, but yeah, things, things changed. Um, basically we decided amongst ourselves that we're not going to pay a ransom to the terrorists who are trying to kill us.

Javier: didn't you guys sign a debt agreement promising to repay for the next three years, a monthly payment of 1,047 a month?

Patrick: Yes, we did.

Javier: And so I know you didn't wanna discuss legal strategy, but that's, court ordered. I mean, you lost, what's happened to you is terrible. Right. But like, I. When it boils down to a court decision, this is, that this is not optional, right? Like you were court ordered to do it, you signed it, so like why

Niki: (Wisconsin Chapter 128 is a program under Wisconsin state statutes that allows an individual residing in Wisconsin to consolidate their unsecured debts (i.e. credit cards, medical bill, utility bills, payday loans) into one monthly payment over a period of 36 months.) The, the, the judgment is court ordered. But the, you know, the, the, um, the payment plan was our idea, the payment plan was our idea, and we just decided not to go through with it.

Patrick: And then we decided after thinking about it that no, we're going to keep fighting this. But the time for fighting this seems to be over. I asked Patrick and Niki if they ever appealed the court's decision. the other thing that we were not informed of was our rights to appeal and like the windows to appeal, which we absolutely would've done. Had we, you know, had we been properly informed of our rights?

Javier: So how, what would you have done differently now knowing that it didn't pan out? what would you have done differently?

Patrick: Well, you know, it's, it's hard to say because we, like, we're, we're both law abiding citizens, So we just relied on the advice of our lawyers as they, as they worked their way through the process. Now, you know, looking back, they stepped on some landmines and. Would a different strategy have, have, uh, been much more beneficial and and less risky for us? Yeah, yeah. Of course it would've been. But there was no way for us to know that ahead of time.

Javier: Let me ask you about those landmines, were you given legal advice warning you that this could go south? That you know you would be, the risk that you were taking was that you would have to pay their attorney's fees? I mean,

Patrick: no.

Niki: It was, no, we would've never gotten involved in this if we knew that

Patrick: this was a risk.

Javier: but you didn't know that was a possibility.

Patrick: We didn't know that was a possibility. we're not done fighting this and we aren't in contempt. We're, we simply aren't, you know, the, the filing that, that their lawyers put in, you know, for a motion of contempt, is again, filled with lies. It, it's, it's simply, most of it is simply untrue. and the, the evidence, the evidence that they, they placed in wasn't evidence of us doing anything wrong was in fact evidence of their continued ongoing obsessive harassment campaign of us. They do not have a leg to stand on here.

Javier: So what happens on later on this month when, when you have to appear in front of court?

Patrick: We expect we're going to tell our side of the story, which is the only side of the story, by the way. That's it.

Javier: you've been court ordered because to pay back this money So like, let's say you choose not to pay and you are ultimately found in contempt of court and you go to. for this or whatever, or get fines that doesn't relieve you from the original court order to pay.

Patrick: the original court order is illegitimate and we will not pay. The people who have made multiple attempts on our lives, it's obscene. We are going to continue fighting this, As you can see, this is coming to a head. 5 years of escalating battles between the pest and Patrick Tomlinson has led us to this point. I asked Quasi that now that Tomlinson is potentially facing jail time over this ordeal, what happens next.

Henry: This seems to assume that there is a choice from my perspective. I continue to run my website. As for Tomlinson, regarding his legal woes, his attorney would likely be the best person to ask about the path forward.

Patrick: Here's Dan Mullen again.

Javier: And do you think that he either pays quasi the, the site administrator or he goes to prison or both or whatever. Does this end the feud? Is that enough for the pests to claim victory or, or does it go on.

Sommerville Dan: If he stopped and if he stopped fighting and he paid and he paid off the debt, then I think people would leave him alone. I, I really do think that

Javier: really that? You really think that?

Sommerville Dan: I, I mean, I think there would still be some people, I mean, I think at this point, you know, the, it's kind of reached a critical mass where there's always gonna be people that are gonna be making fun of him online. What he needs to do is not go on those websites and, and read every comment made about him. Uh, he needs to probably, I mean, if I was him or giving advice that he would listen to, I would say, Maybe you stop tweeting for a few months, or maybe you stop responding to tweets and you, or texts and you just block everyone and don't engage and just shut it down.

Javier: But he's saying he's getting daily calls and daily text messages from people on the group, so it's not like you could just shut

Sommerville Dan: but he, but in five years, in five years, he's never, he's never tried to, to just not, not respond or not engage. He always responds. And I, I think that it just, he's just, he's a very stubborn person and, and I think, and he just feels like he has to set the record straight somehow. And it's true. It seems Patrick Tomlinson can't resist responding to these harassing messages. Every time someone sends him a message, he responds with the same canned answer "Your life is already over, stalker. Enjoy prison." Every single message. Just read his twitter feed.

Speaker: ullen

Javier: The pests even interviewed Patrick for several hours posing as a Huffington Post reporter. This is audio from that interview.

Josiah: Hey Patrick, I think I lost you there. What's up?

Patrick: Yes, sorry about that. I was coming in and outta a building that has a bunch of bunch of steel in it

Josiah: Okay. I was just gonna say that I, uh, spoke with my supervisor about, um, getting in contact with you. Um, she says that you're a fat faggot with bitch tits, so we're gonna have to cancel the article.

Patrick: Oh, well, the thing, the problem with that, sweetie, is that we already figured that out.

Josiah: You already figured out that you're a fat faggot with bitch tits? At this point, most of us would hang up the call. But not Patrick. Patrick decided it was a good idea to continue engaging with this prankster for another 20 minutes.

Patrick: You stupid little piece of shit. You have nothing to say today. You're fat. I'm speaking to you now. Fuck yourself. Good boy. You actually managed to shut your fucking mouth for a couple of seconds. Oh, you didn't That. Even the prankster doesn't understand why Patrick keeps responding. Mentally. Healthy people don't act out the way you do. Mentally healthy people don't pretend to be journalists. Mentally

Josiah: healthy people wouldn't react like this to a prank. Call you fat, faggot your

Patrick: fucking mouth child

Javier: I'm kind of surprised, at the fact that you respond to every single message, every single tweet and, and you have these like, formulaic responses. But why are you responding? Not I just stalker 1 0 1. You don't like, you don't respond to the stalker. Like, what?

Patrick: because they don't get to set the narrative. They don't get to go out here and tell lies about us every day and try and ruin our reputations. No. Period.

Javier: isn't that rewarding them? people are obsessed with you.

Patrick: Yes, they're

Niki: obsessed with it. Yeah. But responding to people isn't illegal and telling people to fuck off is not

Javier: Oh no. It's not illegal. But is it smart? Like wouldn't you

Patrick: It's,

Javier: like, have ever taken a hiatus in responding? Like, have

Patrick: Javi, Javier. This is not trolling. We really need this to get across to, to your listeners too. These people are not trolls. Don't feed the trolls, does not apply to our situation. It's actually very bad advice. Just like the people who just tell us to up and move or, you know, change our phone numbers. This is, this is all bad advice for this situation. Okay.

Javier: But have you it?

Patrick: Yes, we have. Okay. Well the first thing that they did to us, The first thing that they did to me was mass false report. My Twitter account I was off of. I was permanently suspended for Twitter for 11 months, back in 2018 and 2019. I literally could not respond to them. What did they do? They created dozens and dozens of impersonation accounts so that they could go out on Twitter and try and bring in my followers, tricking them into thinking that what they, that they were actually me so that they could then go on these tirades of sexual harassment and racism and homophobia. No, ignoring them does not work. They don't just move on. These aren't trolls. This is a dedicated criminal cyberstalking community. Ignoring them has no effect. we've tried ignoring them for weeks and sometimes months at a time. And what do they do? They double and triple down. They go absolutely nuts. They go bonkers. And they start attacking other people in our orbit and attacking our families. No, not responding does not work. This whole thing is so juveline. It's like a school yard fight that's gone on for 5 years. The pests insist that they mock Patrick because he's violet and once was arrested for threathening his pregnant wife's life. They hang on this police report as their motivation for going after Tomlinson.

Sommerville Dan: and you obviously you read it. I was shocked and I knew that once I shared that, that was kind of a game changer. It kind of puts Patrick in a whole different light. Now, I will say that is not to, um, you know, make an excuse for things that people have done. And I don't want to like Rett con everything because I, I only this, you know, like in the last year. So

Javier: That's what, so that's what I'm, that's where I'm getting at because it's like a lot of people on the forum, they use this report as a reason, like, Hey, we don't like this guy, and this is why. But you just recently discovered that, right? So it's like you're retroactively justifying the harassment. Right.

Sommerville Dan: Correct. I think, I think in some ways people, okay, well now this justifies everything that we did because he's a, a bad person and you know, now you did it 10 years ago, you could even say like, Hey, at what point do you just, you know, people, you let things go. But I, I think it also, when you read it, I think it speaks to the character things. I, I, I could never imagine doing that anyway, to your point, yes. It, it, it, it came out just recently in the last year. So some people will say, okay, well that makes it okay that everything will be done, but I. I think, you know, I, I don't think that that's a fair representation because people were doing that just when they thought he was just a, you know, a, a lull cow as people say, like a a, a person online who is just kind of a, you know, a, a colorful character.

Speaker: Is patrick a pedo?

Javier: Do you believe that Patrick Tomlinson is a pedophile or associates himself with pedophiles?

Sommerville Dan: No, no. I, I, I think that's, that's one of those things where people are just, I mean, they're, I know you interviewed his friend Eric Hilderman, the sci-fi guy, and I think some people like to, you know, paint the dots that, oh, he's in the Sci-Fi Writer's Association and Sci-fi has these problems. As you astutely pointed out, you could say the same thing about the Catholic church. I'm Catholic. maybe there is some institutional issue that needs to be worked out. But you can't paint everybody with that brush. that's not fair. So, no, I don't think that he's a pedophile. I, I think anyone that does that, that's more of a, like, they're trying to get a rise out of him or something like that.

Javier: So it's really not the pedophilia, it's not the, the police report in itself. At the end of the day, it really just boils down to that Patrick Tomlinson is just an easy target, right? For, for this group.

Sommerville Dan: yeah, I, I think he feeds the, feeds the beast, so to speak. You know, he, the, the, the key thing that he does is he responds every time he's physically incapable. Once again, I don't know the reason, but he can't go a day without tweeting or responding. Patrick sort of filled this void, this vacuum of a character that's loosely related, but not really. Uh, just somebody that they found online. And I know the original sin or the initial contact was that Norm McDonald tweet, which okay, that's silly. Like five years of going back and forth over a Norm McDonald

Javier: Nobody likes Nor McDonald that much. Not even

Sommerville Dan: No, but I will say people do like Norm McDonald on the board, a little insulted that but, but really it wasn't the tweet, it was the responses to the tweet. So like for instance, someone responded and said, I'm sorry, who are you? Excuse me. Who are you? And Patrick responded to this person, and this was the tweet that got posted on the O N A forms board. Patrick responded to the person, I'm someone with 10,000 more followers than you. So my, my, my thoughts are more important than you. Or something along those, this very like haughty kind of arrogant, smug response. Smug is the word that I would get. He has this smugness to him that is very off-putting, that makes him a natural target of derision. and then he went on the board, he instigated people. He filed D M C A claims, you could say rightly or wrongly. And then the message board got taken down and people were like, okay, well he wants to keep fighting with us. All right, well, we'll keep fighting back with 'em. And, and that's, it's kind of been a

Javier: it is just kind of

Sommerville Dan: two stubborn groups that just won't, nobody would back down. Parick sued the 60 John Does in order to reveal their identity. but there's one John Does who's identity has always been publicly known. And that's Dan Mullin.

Javier: And you mentioned Dan Mullen by name, and that you felt pretty confident that that, that that's his true identity. A because he, he's publicly out there all the time. But why, why did, why didn't you name him in the lawsuit? If you knew, if that was the whole purpose of the, of the lawsuit was to identify these people and you actually knew his identity. Why didn't you name him publicly

Patrick: We, we didn't, I mean, we had heard Dan Mullen's name at that point, but we weren't certain of his identity at that point. they were already framing innocent people trying to get us to go after them instead of, instead of the real people. And so at the time, you know, we've, we didn't know, we saw, we thought that, uh, Daniel Mullen could very easily be. One of these PSYOPs, you know, just an innocent guy whose identity had been stolen by these people. but that was three years ago. So no, Dan Mullen is, is the real thing. Um, and he's crazy. He is dangerously crazy. This is the guy who last October flew from, from Boston to here in Milwaukee so that he could take spy shots of me while hiding behind a truck across the street from our house. He then filmed our house from the sidewalk and went back and, and put, you know, footage of our house up on YouTube, set to the song. Somebody's watching me. He, Patrick and Niki say that Dan Mullen even posed for photos replicating Patrick and Niki's vacation pictures. that was him in Munich, Germany. Those were pictures from our honeymoon Yeah, Munich and like, we managed to find our hotel. We stayed in this like, specific hotel and they found it just based on the pictures they found the restaurant, well, the restaurant name was in the pictures, but yeah, they went and did a little tour of Munich to recreate what we did on our honeymoon from 2017. he went to another country to recreate our, we our, our, some of our honeymoon photos. The man's insane.

Speaker: Dan has never been contacted by law enforcement

Sommerville Dan: I've never been contacted by law enforcement and I, my name is out there, and I've engaged with Patrick. Uh, I know some other people as well. They've never been in, you know, I would've figured if you know someone, you know, in the F B I or the Milwaukee Police Department had questions, I would be happy to answer them. Um, I've got nothing to hide and I, and I would love them to get to the bottom of it, but

Javier: So some of the feedback that I have received and I haven't received a whole lot, right. Was that, and you know, that my listeners were horrified, obviously naturally by what both of you have experienced. I mean, horrified. They can't even fathom that, that this is going on. but some of my regular listeners have been like disgusted by the approach that, You had towards law enforcement. they couldn't believe that, that despite your frustration that it's very valid, they couldn't believe that it escalated to that point with you.

Patrick: shut the fuck up. Never. Come to this house again. You personally. You personally, sir, never come to this house again. You personally never come to this house again. Any of these guys. The next time you fucking idiots, roll up with the soul. Michaels here 27 times. Four times today. Come on, try to have a better day, sir. Fuck you. Well, once your listeners have had their home swatted seven times in 36 hours and assault rifles pointed at them repeatedly, like half a dozen times or more, then they can be in a position to explain to me how I should react to the police when they yet again come out to our home acting on behalf of the people who are trying to kill us. I'm sorry. I'm a human being. I have emotions and my frustrations have got boiled over. I mean the, the video that you were ref, you were, you were referencing where I was in a verbal altercation with the police. That was the fourth time that day. We'd been swatted four times. We were swatted at 7:00 AM we were swatted again at 11. We were swatted at one. My elderly parents who lived two hours away were swatted, uh, at like noon that day. And then at 9:00 PM at night, while my wife is home alone they come for the fourth time that day. And the 27th time total after this has been going on for nine months. And again, they break out assault rifles and are pointing them at us. It's unacceptable. And the fact that I lost my cool, it just reflects the fact that, again, this was the 27th time, it was the fourth time that day. And if your listeners who are want to, uh, you know, Criticize my reactions to the police terrorizing us, then they have more patience than I do and good for them. The video which you're listening to right now, aired on news piece about the Tomlinson saga, it shows Patrick surreounded by officers as they're trying to cuff him. The video was shot from a distance at night, so it's hard to tell exactly what happens. ButPatrick appears to pull his arm away in order to prevent the officers from retraining him. His arm flew up in the air and many of the pest believe that Patrick was swinging at the officers. I show you respect. No, you were not. You have no, no back. No

Speaker: cops: your back. Put your hands behind your back.

Niki: one of the comments that we've seen on the video where Patrick walks up on the sidewalk and starts yelling at the police, one of the comments is that, you know, you can only talk to the police that way because of the color of your skin. And I just wanna point out that I completely agree with that. And the reason that I'm bringing this up is because it should be a point of note that people who are white should talk to the police if they are doing something wrong and should be able to voice that. I mean, all people should, but if we're gonna use white privilege in this, for this, it's going to be to tell the cops to fucking settle down.

Javier: So you're basically saying you acknowledge that you have that privilege 'cause like somebody of color couldn't get I mean, could, could end up dying for

Patrick: yeah, ab absolutely. There's, there's no, there's no question about that.

Javier: but you're saying in this case that you're exercising it because that's a tool that you have at your disposal,

Patrick: 'cause, because who else is gonna be able to stand up to the cops like that people are saying I, I tried to punch one of the cops. I didn't try to punch one of the cops. I got my arm out of the way of one of the cops trying to grab my wrist. I didn't swing on one of the cops. I wasn't violent with them. Was I loud and angry? Yeah. You're damn right. I

Sommerville Dan: Patrick and Niki told me that it's been a month since the last swatting. And their relationship with Milwaukee Police have improved. They even have a direct line to call if they have a legitmate emergency.

Speaker: (Music)

Sommerville Dan: So how does this all end? I honeslty have no idea. It may never end. Who knows. I promise this will be the last episode on this topic. The whole thing is ridiculous and I'm sure we've all lost some brain cells trying to understand it. Patrick may end up going to jal over this. if he does, I'll tweet about it. But this is it for me. It's time for some other news outlet to pick up the baton. Here's Dan Mullen one last time.

Speaker: sympathetic characters

Sommerville Dan: I wouldn't expect your audience to be sympathetic to, to any of these forum people or the things that they say or they do, or how they've engaged with Patrick. I wouldn't expect it, and I would expect them to probably be more sympathetic to, to Nikki and Patrick. However, I think the more you kind of peel the onion back, I think it's a, it's a little bit more of a level playing field than maybe at first, uh, first appears.

Javier: I don't even know how you guys do it. Like, I really don't know how, I don't know how you do it. I don't know how you stay together. I don't know how You haven't been driven mad,

Speaker: Javier:

Niki: Well, we're certainly not in peak mental health, that's for sure.

Javier: Yeah.

Patrick: Yeah. I would be, it would be impossible to go through an experience like this and not, and not be, you know, and not be changed and touched by it. I mean, we, we both exhibit symptoms of C P T S D at this point. You know, we don't sleep as well as we should. Uh, I probably drink more than I should, but it's not, we don't, we don't have the choice, you know, it's, it's us or them, and we are not gonna be the ones who I. Who end up losing our lives over this?