Exclusive: How Brett Kimberlin Stalked my Wife

This is the latest post in what I half-jokingly call The Kimberlin Saga^®.  If you are new to the story, that’s okay! Not everyone reads my blog.  The short version is that Kimberlin has been harassing me for over a year, his worst conduct being when he attempted to frame me for a crime.  I recognize that this might sound like an incredible claim, but I provide video and documentary evidence of that fact; in other words, you don’t have to believe my word.  You only have to believe your eyes.  So, if you are new to the story, go to this page and you’ll be able to catch up on what has been happening.

Update: McCainalanche, Hogealanche and plus links from BlogBash itself.  Plus more retweets and original tweets than I can hope to keep track of.  Thank you for all of your attention on this story.  Sooner or later justice will come.  Do not lose hope.  Do not despair.  I am confident that every suffering has been according to His plan and His purpose.

Dear reader, I have been mostly quiet for the last week.  It was not because there was not news, but because a situation had arisen.  Namely, Brett Kimberlin had escalated his conduct to stalking and I wanted to be quiet about it for a number of reasons.  For one thing, I have been working with the police in Maryland and Virginia on the situation and that has consumed a good chunk of my time.  And second, I saw that in my silence Kimberlin’s allies were saying thing that were getting them deeper in trouble as you will see in a moment.

On February 28, I went up to Maryland and watched the hearing between John Hoge and Bill Schmalfeldt.  I reported on the hearing, here, and saw that the judge did indeed consider Mr. Schmalfeldt’s conduct to be harassing, but because Mr. Hoge didn’t have proof with him that Schmalfeldt had received the warning to stop, no harassment could be proven at that time.  As regular readers know, under Maryland law, harassment cannot occur until you tell that person to stop.  Of course that meant that Schmalfeldt had lied to the court, but Mr. Hoge couldn’t prove it at that time.

Part of the reason why I was there was to observe as a journalist.  But I was also there to see how the charges would be received in a court of law, and if I felt it went well, I planned to file my own charges.  While the hearing didn’t give Mr. Hoge the victory I was hoping he would have, I left the hearing feeling things had gone very well.  After all, there was no doubt that Schmalfeldt had received my warning to him to stop, given that he responded to one of my warnings with an insulting email, and on another day he read my warning to stop on the air and dared me to file charges against him.  So I decided to grant his wish, if you will.

So on March 1, 2012, I drove down to the Howard County District Courthouse with my wife to file charges and to seek a peace order against Schmalfeldt.  I came in at about eleven in the morning and they told me to come back at 1:15 in the afternoon for what was called a temporary peace order hearing.  So we went to have some lunch and came back about noonish for the long wait before the hearing.

The hearing was to take place in courtroom five and near the waiting area, there was a large wall of glass.  The glass was darker on the outside than on the inside, so it was not quite one way, but it was much easier to see out than in.  I was returning from the clerk’s office and my wife was sitting with her back to the glass wall, when I saw Kimberlin standing right behind her.

How did he end up being there?  The best explanation is that by then the charges and the peace order had been posted on the Maryland Judiciary Case Search database.  I had even seen someone tweet about it, and I may have tweeted it since the cat’s was out of the bag.  So apparently he had jumped into a car and driven right over.  Indeed, I learned after all this happened that he had visited the commissioner’s office and asked them if there was any way he could persuade them to drop the charges against his "friend” Bill Schmalfeldt.  That term, friend, was quoted by the commissioner as the word Kimberlin used.  Regular readers would recognize that as confirmation of what I long believed to be the case: that Bill Schmalfeldt is Brett Kimberlin’s ally.

At the moment I first saw him, he was talking on the phone with someone, apparently unaware that my wife was right in front of him through the wall of glass.  I quickly leaned over to her and whispered, “Kimberlin is here.  Go to the car and wait.”

My assumption at that time was that Kimberlin was there to observe the hearing.  He was dressed like a disheveled homeless man, just like he had been the day before.  He may have even been wearing the same clothes.  I figured if he was there to try to intervene—as he had when I filed a peace order against Neal Rauhauser—he would have shown up in a suit.

So my wife quickly left and I went to security.  There was no one else in the waiting area, and I didn’t want to be alone with Kimberlin because of well... this:

So I informed security of the situation.  They had me sit behind him and promised when we were closer to the hearing time, there would be a bailiff in the area.  So I waited.

I saw Kimberlin come into the courthouse as expected but apparently I missed when he slipped out.

I didn't know this at the time, but when Kimberlin arrived, he had parked his car, a gold Toyota Prius, right behind mine.  This was almost certainly done on purpose.  After all, my car was probably the only car in the parking lot with Virginia tags.  My car had pulled in, nose first, into the space.  Kimberlin’s prius was across the aisle with the back end of his car facing the back end of our car.

So as he came back towards his car, he decided to make a detour and started to approach my car as though to do... something.  He came within a foot of it with his hand reached out.  We are uncertain of what his intentions were, but given we are talking about a convicted bomber, you can draw your own conclusions.  My wife watched this happen from the passenger seat and started emailing and calling me, trying to get my attention.  But where I was sitting in the building—near the security station—had terrible reception.  So I didn’t get the calls at all, and the emails didn’t come for a long time.

So Kimberlin approached the car as if to do something to it.  Then he looked into the passenger side mirror and his eyes locked with my wife’s.  He proceeded to go around the car in a rectangular pattern, sometimes approaching sometimes going away, looking into its interior and at my wife.  Then he walked away back to his car, which you will remember was right behind ours.

He drove around and then parked in the space directly facing my wife.  He then lifted his phone and started taking pictures or filming her.  My wife took a picture of him doing so with her own camera.  Then he retreated to another part of the parking lot to watch.

By then I had read my wife’s emails and rushed out into the parking lot to investigate.  Kimberlin captured pictures or footage of me coming out, angry and scared for the safety of my wife.  He has since published pictures or stills from it on his website Breitbart Unmasked.  I didn’t know precisely where he was, but I shouted loudly enough to hear, “Mr. Kimberlin you are now harassing us and I demand that you stop!”  Then we called the police and around then, Kimberlin left the area.

We explained to the police what had happened and they informed me that they pulled him over in the area.  Kimberlin allegedly told his side of the story, which I presume includes several lies, and even had the gall to suggest he would get a peace order against me, for some bizarre reason.

This of course left my wife pretty shaken up.  Indeed while before she was reluctant to carry a gun, since this happened she has never appeared in public without one, to the extent that the law allows her to do so.  She reported to me that Kimberlin smiled as he stalked her, proving once again he is a creepy old man who gets off on harming women and girls.

My wife was crying almost the entire time I finally went in to seek my peace order against Schmalfeldt.  Indeed even though she was not a witness to the Schmalfeldt matter, I asked the judge to let her sit at the petitioner’s table so she could be near me for comfort and the judge allowed it.  That probably didn’t help Schmalfeldt’s case any.

The next Friday, I had to be in court again because a final peace order hearing was scheduled in the Schmalfeldt matter, but this time we had contingency plans in place in case Kimberlin tried something again.  I had already told Kimberlin to stop harassing me, but an acquaintance sent Mr. Kimberlin an email warning him again and specifically telling him that if he showed up at a hearing in which he was not a participant, I would consider that harassment.  I didn’t expect that to ward him off, but it would help to support criminal charges.

John Hoge arrived early as a potential witness.  I expected the hearing to be continued, but I had to be prepared for anything, and Hoge would be useful in authenticating the recording from their hearing if I needed that in evidence.  He waited in his car about an hour early, reading and checking email on his iPad.  Meanwhile, I was coming in with my friend driving.  This time I kept my wife far away and in the presence of several well-armed persons (she herself is a pretty good shot, more than capable of defending herself).  She would be well-defended if Kimberlin decided to make a move to hurt her.  Mr. Hoge observed Kimberlin coming into the parking lot and driving around it, and then leaving and called me to tell me he had done that.  We arrived close to 1 p.m. and by then Kimberlin had arrived a second time.  I saw his face and my friend who was driving found a place to kind of “hide in plain sight.”  Kimberlin was apparently looking so hard for Virginia tags, he literally didn’t see us.  He then left a few minutes later.  Mr. Hoge captured him on video doing this and published a still from the video on the web.

And this is key.  Kimberlin didn’t even get out of his car.  So there was no question that he was only there to stalk me, even after my clear warning telling him not to show up.  He wasn’t pretending to have any other purpose.

This, of course, isn’t the only thing he did.  He also apparently called the venue where this year’s blog bash was going to occur, angry at the thought that I might be there.  But I will let Ali Akbar tell that story.

Anyway, for those who were curious, as suggested by this post, the hearing itself ended up being continued and the temporary peace order was extended until March 22, at which point in time a final peace order hearing will be held.  Mr. Kim showed up for the defense, again, so despite Schmalfeldt publicly calling him a jerk and saying he was fired, apparently Schmalfeldt decided that, on balance, Kim was a good choice to represent him.  Lawyers see that sort of thing happen now and then.  I approached Mr. Kim beforehand and told him I would be amenable to a continuance.  Of course if I had claimed my mother had died, I am sure Schmalfeldt would ask for her death certificate just as he did with the daughter Lee Stranahan had lost.  But that kind of thing is what separates us from our opponents: we recognize boundaries and have decency.  So I was the one who explained the situation to the judge and said I would agree to a continuance.  Mr. Kim actually said in response to my suggestion that we continue the hearing, “I couldn’t have said it better myself.”

But there is one more wrinkle that came out of it.  Now, you might have noticed that today I referred to Breitbart Unmasked as Brett Kimberlin’s website, instead of saying I suspected it was.  Well, that is because Bill Schmalfeldt let the cat out of the bag.

Specifically (via Lee Stranahan) he revealed that the person who took the photographs was none other than “The Watchful Avenger:”

“The Watchful Avenger” is what they have taken to calling calling this “Breitbart Unmasked” character on Twitter and the “publisher” of the Breitbart Unmaksed Blog.  Schmalfeldt is specifically referring to photographs of me taken at the courthouse and now you know who took them: Brett Kimberlin.  So Brett Kimberlin owns Breitbart Unmasked, which unsurprisingly means that he has perjured himself when claiming he doesn’t blog or use twitter.

Sure, since then Bill Schmalfeldt has tried to claim it wasn’t what he meant, and so on.  But  clearly it is published by his “friend” Brett Kimberlin.  Just as Brett Kimberlin used to pretend he was not associated with Neal Rauhauser until it became obvious, it is now beyond obvious that Bill Schmalfeldt is working with Brett Kimberlin.  As in, Schmalfeldt is Kimberlin’s paid employee.

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Disclaimer:

I have accused some people, particularly Brett Kimberlin, of reprehensible conduct.  In some cases, the conduct is even criminal.  In all cases, the only justice I want is through the appropriate legal process—such as the criminal justice system.  I do not want to see vigilante violence against any person or any threat of such violence.  This kind of conduct is not only morally wrong, but it is counter-productive.

In the particular case of Brett Kimberlin, I do not want you to even contact him.  Do not call him.  Do not write him a letter.  Do not write him an email.  Do not text-message him.  Do not engage in any kind of directed communication.  I say this in part because under Maryland law, that can quickly become harassment and I don’t want that to happen to him.

And for that matter, don’t go on his property.  Don’t sneak around and try to photograph him.  Frankly try not to even be within his field of vision.  Your behavior could quickly cross the line into harassment in that way too (not to mention trespass and other concerns).

And do not contact his organizations, either.  And most of all, leave his family alone.

The only exception to all that is that if you are reporting on this, there is of course nothing wrong with contacting him for things like his official response to any stories you might report.  And even then if he tells you to stop contacting him, obey that request.  That this is a key element in making out a harassment claim under Maryland law—that a person asks you to stop and you refuse.

And let me say something else.  In my heart of hearts, I don’t believe that any person supporting me has done any of the above.  But if any of you have, stop it, and if you haven’t don’t start.