The Return of the Stalker part 20

Javier: I wake up and pick up my phone like I do every morning. I check my notifications, clear out all the junk mail, and as I'm swiping messages and deleting, I see an email sent to me at 1:19 AM It was from Chelsea Fernandez, the disabled adult daughter of Rick and Tanya Fernandez. I couldn't believe it. This has to be a setup of some kind.

Speaker: It read quote. Hi Javier, this is Chelsea. I'm venting because I'm having a hard time mentally. I need you to promise me that you're going to keep this email anonymous, like don't make a podcast episode about it. I got that email back in June of this year and I sat on it for a long time. But sorry Chelsea, I'm making a podcast episode about it. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, it's probably a good time to stop right here and check out season 12 of pretend. I know many of you are new and discovered the podcast from the Lana era. And if you're looking for another wild rabbit hole, this is the season for you. There are almost 30 episodes on this case, including bonus episodes. Today we are going to revisit the stalker case. Let's just say that Tanya and Rick Fernandez are back at it and they are up to no good. It's been a hot minute since we last talked about Rick and Tanya Fernandez. So let's do a quick recap just to catch everyone up. Chelsea Fernandez, Tanya and Rick Fernandez's disabled adult daughter, was a patient of Dr. Gwen Gman, a pediatric doctor at a hospital in Phoenix, Arizona. Of course, I'm only using Tanya and Rick's real name. In addition to Tanya and Rick. I'm also going to reveal the name of their son, Blake Fernandez. Blake, who was previously referred to as Will is the oldest son with a sex offender conviction. I. Blake is an adult and has chosen to partake in the Fernandez's harassment campaign, as you will hear in this episode. So we're gonna get into that in a bit. But everyone else in the story has a pseudonym to protect their identity and also it's just easier to follow that way. I. Anyway, going back to the story, Chelsea was in her twenties in August of 2017 when she started seeing Dr. Gman, a 21-year-old, seeing a pediatric doctor. That's a bit odd, right? Well, Tanya and Rick claimed that Chelsea has the mental age of a 12-year-old. It was around this time when the harassment started. Tanya and Rick claimed that Dr. GRE's husband was sending them crude and threatening messages from multiple Instagram accounts and spoof numbers. It still sounds ridiculous even after all this time. Detective Anthony Harena with a Phoenix pd subpoenaed Instagram and found that the IP address for those messages all came back to a Cox communication account belonging to Tanya and Rick Fernandez. I. The Fernandez's claim that Dr. GREs men's husband, John ResMan, was the one behind the harassment. And somehow this guy who worked in the marketing department at Cox Communication was savvy enough to hack Tanya and Rick's Cox communication account over a three year period, despite there being no evidence to support this wild theory. I spent two years talking on the phone with the Fernandez, listening to these crazy stories, humoring them before even publishing an episode A few days after I dropped the first 12 episodes on the series, A grand jury met and indicted Tanya and Rick Fernandez with six felonies combined. If you're a longtime listener, pretend you remember waiting patiently as the trial date kept getting pushed and pushed until one day Tanya and Rick stood before a judge all rise. The judge clearly laid out all their options. Either maintain your innocence and take your chances in front of a jury or plead guilty.

Tanya: I feel that if I under oath. Said that I did something that I didn't do. I'm lying, and I know under oath you're supposed to tell the truth, and I'm not going to lie under oath and say I did something that I did not do,

Javier: but there was a third option.

Judge: I'm wondering though, have you heard of diversion? Do you know what that is?

Speaker: No. Okay, so diversion is something that the prosecutor's office can offer to folks that don't have any prior convictions and. It's a way to have it never be a conviction. You sometimes they make you go to treatment or I don't know what you would do in a case like this.

Tanya: I think counseling or treatment,

Judge: counseling or treatment for X number of period of time.

Speaker: And then if you do all of that, it goes away, gets dismissed, it's done. I. Over. The thing with diversion is I think they have to admit to something. There has to be a factual, there has to be a factual basis for it, but it goes, it goes away. It's never a conviction.

Tanya: I'm not ready to make that decision because like I said before, I don't wanna plead to some, I don't wanna plead guilty to something that I didn't do.

Speaker: You're

Judge: not pleading, you're not guilty.

Rick: But we would have to bill, we would have to provide facts that we were guilty and like I told my attorney. Where am I gonna pull this out of?

Javier: To enter into the diversion program, they need to explain to the court exactly what they did that was wrong and criminal. In other words, they have to openly describe their actions that led to the charges against them.

Speaker: Both Tanya and Rick completed their court ordered counseling in the police report that I requested from Phoenix pd. There was a note about Rick Fernandez's counseling sessions that he completed as part of the diversion deal. The report states that Rick completed 12 sessions. During the counseling sessions, Rick continued to complain about being a victim of crime and accused Phoenix PD and the DA's office of criminally charging them with these crimes in order to quote, make them go away. The note ends with his final diagnosis, adjustment related disorder, which is basically an excessive reaction to stress that involves negative thoughts, strong emotion, and changes in behavior. And on July of this year, their case was dismissed. No more felonies, no more jail, no more stalking. Tanya and Rick Fernandez lived happily ever after. Right. Right? I don't think so. It turns out that since my last episode, the Fernandez have been busy. Today we are going to talk about everything that has happened since we revisited this case. I'm Javier Eva, and this is Pretend Stories about real People. Pretending to be someone else. It became clear that the people doing the harassment weren't the GREs mens. Instead, it was most likely the Fernandez. Tanya and Rick made multiple false police reports to both Phoenix and Peoria Police accusing both Dr. Gman and her husband of harassing them. The Fernandez hired a private investigator who went to the home of Dr. Gman. They reported Dr. G Gman to the Arizona Department of Child Services alleging that Dr. G Gman and her husband John were abusing their infant daughter. I. They even reported Grace Gman to the Arizona Medical Board so she could lose her job. All of these accusations, by the way, are completely unfounded. Just listing these events reminds me of how horrible I feel for Grace ResMan and her husband, John. I mean, they have been dealing with this nightmare for five years now. Can you imagine A recent police report states that this ordeal has caused Grace Gradman significant emotional distress. She said that she has worked her whole life to become a doctor and feels that someone in the Fernandez's house is dragging her name through the mud, Dr. G Gman had to deal with multiple social media accounts using her name, admitting to botch surgeries, posts of Dr. ResMan threatening suicide, causing the police to show up at her house, vile and disgusting messages with her husband's name threatening to kill her baby. The list goes on and on and on. Let's get back to that email that I mentioned at the top of the show. You know the one from Chelsea Fernandez. Hi Javier, this is Chelsea. I'm venting because I'm having a hard time mentally. I need you to promise me that you're gonna keep this email anonymous, like don't make a podcast about it. So I got into this huge argument today with my parents and needed someone other than my family to talk to. I made a huge mistake and took some money from my parents just to replace some things of mine that they accidentally donated a few months ago. Mind you, the money hasn't been touched in years. They were saving it, quote unquote, to go to the Bethel JW headquarters around 2011, but that never happened, so I thought I'd take some money just to replace some of my things, and since I only have a limited income, I. My parents flipped out today. My parents called me a thief, a criminal, greedy, selfish. I was recently hospitalized and discharged yesterday. My mom made a statement quote, how would I feel if they just left me in the hospital to fend for myself since I'm over 18 unquote, since I broke their trust? Which upsets me because I didn't ask to have a guardianship. I hate when she uses it against me. I tried telling her that I'm still having headaches and shunt pain and don't really want to argue. I. But she blew my pain off. I'm just very frustrated. You'd think a parent having guardianship over you that they'd be a little bit more sympathetic, but sometimes it's like living with mommy dearest. I know this is a random email, but I don't have any friends to vent to other than quote spiritual brothers and sisters who think that my parents are always loving. Please keep me in this chat anonymous because my parents secretly listen to your podcast. You know, at first I thought this was a fake email. It was a Gmail address with Chelsea's name, but spelled a little different. I was in the middle of the LaDonna series, so at the time I thought LaDonna was messing with me, but the thing that caught my attention was that she ended the email with a phone number that had a Phoenix area code that was strange, but it was a phone number that I was not familiar with. So we went to work with the help of Michelle Khan, you know, the ethical hacker. We were able to authenticate the phone number. Micha also tried to sign into the Gmail account and attempted to recover the account. The next screen prompted him to enter a code. The instructions, read quote, get your Galaxy tab a seven light. That's the same exact phone model associated with the other Fernandez daughter, Logan. Then using a caller ID search website, Ms. Shaw was able to trace the phone number to a T-Mobile account associated with Tanya Fernandez. I'll be Dan. It looks like this could actually be Chelsea reaching out. Or it could just be Tanya and Rick trying to get my attention. So I wrote back, hi Chelsea, thanks for the email. Let me know if you ever want to talk off the record. Of course, I also left her my phone number. I didn't hear anything. I called and texted the number. Nothing. Was this really Chelsea reaching out? Chelsea, who reportedly has the mental age of a 12-year-old, or was this someone else messaging me through her Gmail account? My first thought was, hmm, someone seems like they're a little jelly. You know, the stalker was the biggest season of pretend until the LaDonna Humphrey season came around, and now suddenly there goes all the attention. Then something else happened. I got word that an author going by the name of Rachel Chola published a book on Amazon called Layers of Attack. I'll read you the description. This is a true and disturbing story of how an ordinary family can easily be cyber stocked and tormented by a person who is very adept at internet hacking. The family is also repeatedly victimized by those who are supposed to protect law enforcement. It goes on to describe how this family's daughter's, doctors husband contact them on social media and began a campaign of harassment. This lasted four years, but it wasn't just a stalker who was trying to destroy their lives. I. It was the detective on the case, a podcaster and their neighbors. The book Layers of Attack is the Family Story of Survival. It says, wow, this sounds awfully familiar, doesn't it? Yes, the Fernandez have a book on Amazon written from their perspective. In the book, the wife's name is Tammy and the husband, well, the author Rachel Chola, forgot to include his name in the book. I mean, seriously, this is an objectively bad book. It says, the story is told by me. All the names have been changed. Who the hell is me? Is me Rachel Chola, the author? No, actually me is the husband. The book was so hard to follow halfway through the book with no explanation at all. The author, Rachel Chola uses everyone's real names, including the real names of the doctor and her husband. What's even more mind blowing about this book is that it was published on January 4th, 2024. Why is that significant? Because Tanya and Rick Fernandez were still facing trial. Yes. These guys were charged with six felonies combined, ordered by the court to stay off the internet except for business purposes, and the judge explicitly told Tanya and Rick not to discuss the case or the facts of the case with each other. Kinda hard to do when you're married, but still, you know, this was a condition of their plea deal. It's incredible. Two months after this happened. I'm

Judge: wondering though, have you heard of diversion? So diversion is something that the prosecutor's office can offer to folks that don't have any prior convictions, and it's a way to have it never be a conviction.

Speaker: It goes away, gets dismissed. It's done over.

Javier: Tanya and Rick released the book. The book came out even before they signed their plea deal. The plea deal that when completed could result in their felony charges being dropped. The thing is nobody knew this book was released on Amazon. It wasn't until months later that anyone realized the book was out.

Speaker: Do you think the prosecutors would have offered that sweet diversion deal if they knew that this book was out there Slandering the doctor and her husband? Unbelievable. Right. Oh, but the book was written by Rachel Chola, not Rick and Tanya. Right. Well, we'll get into this Rachel Chola in just a second. But first, let's follow the timeline. On February 13th, 2024, Rick and Tanya Fernandez signed the diversion plea deal, meaning if they admit to the crime and go to counseling and stay outta trouble in five months, they get their charges dropped. So what happened during that five month period? Three days after they signed the plea deal, Rachel Chola sends a large envelope to Dr. GRE's Hospital. What's in the package? A copy of the book, layers of Attack, signed by Rachel Chola. Copies of pages of Phoenix PD police reports, and a photo of John Grisman superimposed on a cease and Desis letter written by the Fernandez. That was in February. In June. That's when I get the email from Chelsea Fernandez. On June 25th, Dr. G Gman discovers the book Layers of Attack was written about her and her husband. The book was mailed to multiple executives at the hospital, and then the very next day, Tanya and Rick's charges were dropped. Two days later, detective Anthony Cardina reopens the investigation into the Fernandez. Dr. Gman wrote to Detective Harena and told them all the repercussions that have happened. Because of this, her husband has started anti-anxiety medications. She's afraid to answer her door. She's afraid to answer her phone if she doesn't know who's calling. She says she wakes up in the middle of the night worried about what will happen next. She says she has trouble falling asleep because of this. She's suspicious of every car in the neighborhood. She says she lives in a cul-de-sac and knows all the neighbors. So it's strange when a car comes around and they take note of it because they're constantly worried about who's watching them. She has trouble not thinking about it. She says she probably thinks about it every day, and then sometimes it fades away when nothing happens for a while, and then all of a sudden she thinks about it all the time. When things flare up again, like now, it's a constant feeling of fear and impending doom. She says she's worried that her job might just wanna let her go rather than deal with this, but thankfully they've been very supportive. She's also terrified because when they called CPS, they had to go downtown to their office and explain to them that they are not abusing their daughter and her daughter's pediatrician, who often refers patients to Dr. Gman, was notified of the CPS report, and she's so embarrassed by this and would not be surprised if she no longer refers patients to her. She's worried about what they're gonna do next. Call the local TV station and have a news report about it. It's terrifying. She says to think about it. Every time a patient schedules an appointment and doesn't show up, she wonders if the Fernandez wrote a bad review about her. When we come back from the break, we are gonna talk about the book's author Rachel Chola. Who is she and what's her relationship to Rick and Tanya Fernandez? So who is this author? Rachel Chola. In the book layers of Attack, she's described as a close friend of the family, but Detective Ena wanted to know if you Google Rachel Chola, you would expect to see links to her work, but there's nothing. The only thing that pops up is the link to her only book, layers of Attack. There is no LinkedIn page, no author website, no articles written about her. It's almost like she doesn't exist. The last page of the book includes an email for Rachel Chola. I. Detective Harena wrote Rachel an email and so did I. I wrote, hi Rachel. I'm curious to know how you got involved with the Fernandez family. Were you concerned that publishing this book amid the Fernandez legal battle would jeopardize their case? This will be shocking to you, but Rachel Chola never wrote or called me back. Let's turn back to the mysterious package sent to Dr. GREs men's hospital. It was sent by Rachel Chola from a peel box located. Get this only a mile and a half away from the Fernandez's house. Interesting coincidence, right? Also, here's the thing about PO boxes. In order to open a PO box, you need two forms of id. Detective Harena reached out to the postal inspector to find out who really sent the packages to Dr. GREs Men's Hospital. The PO Box account was opened back February 2nd, three days prior to the Fernandez's signing the diversion plea deal three days. The PO Box application shows two names, Rick Fernandez and Rachel Chola. Rachel didn't have her id, so they just used Rick's ID for verification. Right now nobody is buying this Rachel Chola story. I mean, it's pretty clear that Rachel Chola is just a figment of Rick Fernandez's imagination. Brittany Fernandez. Rick's niece lived with the Fernandez for years and never heard of Rachel Chola. In fact, Rachel's email address RL Chola fifty9@gmail.com ends with Rick's birth year, which is how he ends his personal email address. The name Chola may have been inspired by Rick's childhood. Both Rick and his siblings went to Chola Elementary School in Phoenix. The school was named after the Chola Cactus, which is a native cactus found throughout Arizona. Cholas are known for having barbed spines, which tenaciously attached to the skin, generating a disproportionately large amount of pain, only in tiny areas. The name seems fitting, to be honest. Then on July 9th, detective Ena receives a screenshot of a surveillance video from the postal inspector. The video was taken at the time the packages were mailed to Dr. GREs Men's Hospital. The video frame, which I haven't personally seen shows Rick Fernandez holding three packages with a younger woman standing next to him. The detective couldn't make out whether it was his oldest daughter, Logan or Dr. GREs men's former patient, Chelsea. A few days later, the GREs filed an injunction against harassment, basically a restraining order against both Rick and Tanya Fernandez. The GREs Mens also sent them a cease and desist letter demanding that the Fernandez take down the book from Amazon. The book has since been removed from the US Amazon store, but it's still available in other countries, including the UK and other Amazon stores from around the world. Detective Harena also subpoenaed Google for Rachel Cholas email. It came back registered to you guessed it, Rick Fernandez. And you might be asking yourself, isn't all this activity a violation of their plea deal? I think so. Why they are not back in court is beyond me. I guess one workaround is to use your children to continue to harass the GREs mens I. On August 15th, 2024, Rick and Tanya Fernandez's son, Blake Fernandez. You know the convicted sex offender filed the police report accusing John Gman of charging $200 on his credit card, claiming that John Gman has been committing credit card fraud for the last six months. However, he failed to back up any of these allegations with evidence. The very next day, their son, Blake Fernandez, reported that John g Gman broke into his car. However, doorbell footage from across the street shows no evidence of a break-in. I guess they figured if they could get Blake to do the harassment, Tanya and Rick can claim plausible deniability. I. Blake, by the way, has had his own legal drama going on himself. Back in March of 2023, he was arraigned for harassing their neighbor. According to the Peoria police report, the neighbor told police that Blake Trespassed and she asked him to get off her property. I. She said, he started yelling you fucking cunt while waving his middle finger. Then he got on his roller blades and started rolling back and forth in front of her house, taunting her, yelling, what are you gonna do about it? The event was also caught on doorbell surveillance, but unfortunately audio was not captured. Funny enough, Blake eventually got a diversion plea just like his mama and papa. Rick also details these events with the neighbor and his book, layers of Attack. He named the neighbor Karen Q The Eye Roll. When we come back, I will read you portions of the book written by Rachel Chola, AKA Rick Fernandez. The book is called Layers of Attack because the Fernandez are the poor, innocent people attacked by the GREs Mens Detective Ena, the podcaster, that's me and their neighbor. This random group is collaborating to destroy their lives. What are the chances? It starts, quote, this is a true story. It's also an unbelievable and very disturbing story. This is a story of when forces of good decide to change over to the forces of evil unquote. I read this book in one sitting. It was a quick and painful read. If I didn't know their story, I would be so confused. Like I said, the book is written by Rachel Chola, but it's told from Rick Fernandez's first person account. Rick talks about the process of hiring attorneys. He said his attorney was recommended by a friend and represented him at a discount. Tanya had to get a separate lawyer from a different firm. He laments that every phone call and email added up quickly. He claims that he borrowed under a hundred thousand dollars to hire his criminal defense team. I can only imagine how expensive it must have been to rehash the hours and hours of bullshit stories that they told me on the podcast. Hell, I bet listening to all 31 episodes, including bonus episodes, cost them a pretty penny. A big portion of the book features screenshots between Tanya and the Stalker. It is so juvenile to read these messages again. After a lengthy exchange with the stalker, Tanya writes, quote, my husband is awesome. He's not a man baby like you are. The stalker replies, my life is ruined because of you, bigots unquote. In another text exchange, the stalker says quote, I better impregnate my wife tonight before it's too late. Tanya replies with what A pencil and grapes. I'm guessing that that's her attempt at a cock and balls joke. There are 48 pages of text messages just like this. It's exhausting. Chapter 11, though. It's all about me. The slime caster. Seriously, that's what they call the chapter slime caster. In the book, he refers to my podcast as a tabloid with lies and misrepresentations. He says that I ignored several key facts because it didn't support my narrative. But, oh, and by the way, the book ends with a link to Rick Fernandez's photography page. But remember, this isn't rigged. This is the work of Rachel Chola. All right, so what happens now? That's a good question. The police report ends on August 17th, 2024. It's now the end of September or early October whenever you're listening to this, and to my knowledge, nothing has happened. I'm not a prosecutor, but. It sure seems like Tanya and Rick violated the terms of their plea deal. Not only did they have to admit some guilt, they had to stay outta trouble, and none of that happened. They continued to deny their involvement in the form of a book, and they used their son as a proxy to continue the harassment on the gman, and they did all this while they were on probation. How much more torture should this doctor and her husband have to endure? What would it take for these two to learn their lesson? One thing has now become crystal clear. Tony Fernandez always appeared to be the ringleader, but it wasn't always obvious if Rick was complicit or if he was just completely oblivious to all this. But now it is evident that Rick Fernandez is very much a player in this harassment case. So that's it for this episode on the Fernandez. If anything new happens, I will keep you posted. So stay tuned. Next time on pretend we are going to lighten things up a little bit. I have an amazing pretend story, the ultimate, uh, pretender, and it's not a crime story. It's about a soccer player, a footballer from Brazil. One of the greatest footballers who never played a single game. It's a fascinating, fun story. We need a fun one coming up, so that's next time on pretend. All right, so a lot of times on this podcast you hear me asking you to become a Patreon supporter or a Pretend plus supporter on Apple Podcast, but this time I'm actually. Doing the opposite. I'm asking you to support some of my Patreon supporters. I wanna support some of my nonprofit and small business Patreon supporters. And the first one I wanna mention is Rebel Dogs Detroit. This is a no kill dog rescue based out of Detroit, Michigan. If you wanna learn more about them, check them out@rebeldogsdetroit.com. The other company I wanna talk to you about is Guatemala Trading Company. Now the folks at Guatemala Trading Company sent me some chocolates, coffee and some hot sauces, and they were amazing. And honestly, it, they were delicious. So if you're looking for a gift to give somebody and just are out of ideas, check out Guatemala trading company.com. They have chocolates, spices, coffee. You're gonna love it. In fact, I'm gonna order some more because I love having dark chocolate around the house just to break off a little square. It does the trick. Check 'em out Guatemala trading company.com. Again, these are listeners who own a small business or organization that are supporting this show, and I want to give back. All right, that's it for today. Talk to you soon.