Rogue Journalist is Permanently Defunct

I am not dead or dying, but I am shutting down this website for good.

This is Rogue Journalist. For the last decade, I have spent a lot of my time pretending to be a highly-rated journalist in the Pittsburgh area. With this website, I have caused a massive amount of unnecessary damage to many people who did not deserve it. Some of that damage is permanent, and has a lasting impact on the people who I hurt. That damage has found its way back to me, and I have been ruined by my own conduct. I was a troll. I was a hater. I was a douchebag, dickhead, assmunch, fuckwad, manchild. Whatever you want to call me. Now, I am nothing. I have nothing. This website ruined my life.

I have decided to make a site-wide retraction. Henceforth, all of my articles shall redirect to this statement, which is an admission of wrongdoing.

I am not a journalist. I never was a journalist. This was never a news website. This was a drama blog, and a hit website for people I came at odds with. I lied to all of my readers, and when I was confronted about my lies, I doubled down; made more targets out of honest people. I lied about all of my victims. My victims were treated unfairly, and harmed needlessly. My written works have caused damage to reputations, relationships, and cost my victims opportunities or careers.

In the spirit of coming clean, I admit that I am severely mentally ill. I have several personality disorders. I am incompetent, and not a reliable source of information. My mental illnesses have symptoms which result in aggression, predisposal to sadistic behavior, pettiness, malice, sociopathy, delusions of grandeur, narcissism, uncontrolled anger, and bouts of rage. Additionally, I have several substance abuse problems which have worsened my mental ailments, and have caused me to become more embroiled in destructive behavior. By no means am I making an excuse for my actions by using this information. It is vital for me to communicate these facts so that others can have context into what was going on in the background.

Rogue Journalist was an outlet for me to revel in my destructive tendencies and participate in this cruel behavior in what I thought was a “safe” manner. I picked a domain name and made a persona built on delusion, dishonesty, and extravagant mania. I abused the internet and relative anonymity in a way to demean, humiliate or damage innocent people. I had control over people to a point where what I published was viewed by others to be a form of the truth. I spent hours manufacturing every intricate detail in fabricated, malicious stories about others. I misrepresented facts in a warped fashion to appeal to my sadistic fetish for the destruction of my victims.

I specialized in misinterpreting public legal documents to vilify others. To clarify, I did NOT have an “insider” to get access to these documents as I claimed. These legal documents are provided by the State for use by the defendants, plaintiffs, lawyers, and administrators in each case. They are accessible by the public. I abused this ease of access for destructive purposes. I misused legal terms to falsely implicate my victims for crimes that they were only charged with. I often intentionally described their charges to be convictions, and wrote this in articles attacking my victims. ALL of my victims were acquitted of their charges, or had their cases dropped, contrary to what I had claimed. I lied about their cases, and I planned to do damage by doing so.

In one instance, I lied about Austin Ayers. I viewed him as a direct competitor to me and my website. Austin did not deserve the false accusations of pretending to be a police officer, EMT, firefighter, nursing student, nor patient care tech. When I contacted the hospitals he claimed to work at, they did validate his claims. When I contacted the Butler County Community College to validate his EMT class completion, they validated that he did complete the EMT class. This went against my motive and I had to lie. The police department used what I said as fact when he tried to create a search and rescue organization. They villified him for what I have done, and for that I apologize to Austin.

In the moment, I enjoyed what I was doing. I acknowledged that I was being a nuisance. I took pride knowing that I was harming other people. My goal was to cause chaos and destruction in other lives that were not mine. My conduct has caused very real problems for people who did not deserve it. Those people were deprived of the means to be comfortable while I invaded their privacy. I provisioned campaigns of harassment, and made my victims worry for their safety online and offline. I solicited vandalism of their property, including their homes and automobiles. I solicited hackers to breach their networks in order to spy on my victims, or to wreak havoc on their personal computers, smartphones, and other devices. I have weaponized law enforcement against people using false reports, including the use of SWATTING, causing undue legal burdens to my victims while endangering their welfare in the process.

My articles have cost my victims potential jobs or other opportunities. My writing has ended relationships, and caused undue conflict; even violence between pre-existing ex-partners or other enemies. My lies have eroded positive career outlooks for my victims. The damage to their reputation cannot be understated, and I hope this retraction will do something to repair this damage. For as much as I hope, I can't take back what has already happened as a result of my actions. For that, I feel terrible.

Despite the damage I inflicted to others, fate has caught up with me and made me realize just how it all feels. I am homeless, alone, in debt, and sleeping wherever I find myself at the end of the day. I am no longer employed, and may never be employed again. My services are no longer desired by those who used to know me. My personal relationships have been destroyed. My family has been endangered by my misconduct. My friends have been attacked over my reckless behavior, have detested their involvement with me, and have abandoned me for their safety. What damage I have inflicted to others has reciprocated tenfold. My life at this moment is unbearable. I am miserable. If I inflicted a fraction of this damage to others, then I now have the context to apologize.

To all of my victims, I apologize profusely. To my readers, I hope you find this article to explain that my conduct was malicious, and that I misled you in order to satisfy myself by attacking others. I suggest for you to apologize for any damage that you did based on my articles. My articles are untrue, and intentionally misleading. They do not hold merit, and should not be used to judge my victims any longer.

To the City of Pittsburgh, I apologize for abusing your hospitality, resources and reputation to build my capability to cause this damage. I apologize for using your streets to hide while I fled the consequences of my actions. I apologize for causing undue unrest as a result of my pathetic musings. I apologize for visiting your underworld to purchase substances which benefit harmful criminal actors in your communities. Above all, I apologize for polluting the journalistic community. I did not belong, but shoved myself where I dare to go in an effort to hold up my persona, which did eventually shatter.

My guidance for anybody that finds themselves in my situation, please take this warning seriously. A lifetime of trolling like this will cost you. For as fun or thrilling as this seems right now, you are making the world a worse place for others and building a boulder of backlash and legal recompense that will wipe you out. This stuff finds a way back to you. You will reap what you sew. I thought I was safe and untouchable too. I am now ruined. There is no recovery from this. I have nothing. I am nothing. It is not worth the ten minutes of giggles you get every few weeks or so. This is not a lesson that you want to learn the way that I did. Stop and find something better to do before you lose the ability to do anything else.

Finally, if any other website that attempts to be created using my legal name or website name, Rogue Journalist, it shall be deemed fake. This has been my website for the past 5-years, and I will only make updates to this website. No other domain should be taken as factual if it does not bear the name, RogueJournalist.org