I’ve had the chance to read this thread. The facts are like many cases I’ve handled before.
My advice to the OP is to first do an honest self-assessment regarding risk. Some people are very risk-averse and other people live life balls-out. If you’re more towards being risk-averse on the spectrum because you’d have a lot to lose from exposure, consider paying the SB, especially if it’s not much money. Of course, she may come back for more, and more, and more, and the snake would become a multi-headed Hydra. However, it’s unlikely that the offender will accept your payoff and then immediately expose you. Why kill the golden goose if she can get more eggs? On the other hand, if you relish risk, you can call her bluff and tell her to go fuck herself. My clients hire me in these situations because they fall somewhere in the middle of the risk spectrum.
When a competent lawyer becomes involved, all dynamics of the situation change. My method in dealing with the problem is to call the miscreant and calmly and dispassionately explain how they are breaking the law and what I’ll do if they continue to do so. I tell the criminal my real name and urge them to check the state bar’s website to confirm I’m an attorney. I never threaten a lawbreaker, yell at them, or try to bluff them by telling them I’ll do something when I know I won’t. The deterrent is my assurance that I will contact the appropriate LE authority and pursue a complaint on behalf of my client if they continue their course. (btw, I need not reveal my client’s RW name to the police to file a complaint.) If I know the desk sergeant at the relevant PD, I drop his name. Sometimes a lowlife will call the PD to confirm the name.
Usually, the crook has the strong urge to tell me their side of the story. I put them on speaker phone and work on something else. Often, the malefactor will tell me they were “just kidding” when they made the overt threat to my client.
In all the hundreds of cases I’ve worked over more than 20 years, my client never heard from the reprobate again, with one exception: An obsessed ASPD moderator about 10 years ago. He kept calling the provider. I made a second call to him in which I was no longer polite. That ended the game.
Obviously, the misdoer engages in such conduct to make money. My method works because the villain does a risk versus reward assessment and decides the chance of being arrested is greater than the chance of reward from continuing to pursue the money. What happens is my client is no longer threatened but the transgressor is. After I talk to a reprobate, they make the prudent business decision to move on to easier targets. It is a basic rule of life that people don’t like lawyers fucking with them.
Of course, these are my views only, based on my experience, training, knowledge, cunning, audacity, and some cheap mescal. You may think differently, although you’d be wrong.
Final notes:
I would not suggest you hire a lawyer unless they have specific experience in dealing with such situations. Using my method, a lawyer’s relationship with a DA’s office is irrelevant because my client never files a complaint. (I don’t think I’d represent a client who insisted on filing a complaint in a plain vanilla blackmail or harassment case because it’s stupid and doing so could only hurt my client. My client’s interests are more important to me than society’s interests.)
This thread has lots of discussion why the OP is in his situation. I have ideas on that, but they belong in a different thread.
Why don’t I write letters? Because letters create a trail to both me and my client.
There’s lots of speculation in this thread by non-lawyers. Those of you who know me know I HATE speculation. State what you KNOW, then STFU – unless you’re dealing with a cop, of course.
