Silver Sands Books

Starting on 6/25/10, Michael N. Marcus and Silver Sands Books became the targets of an elaborate smear campaign.

Michael was unjustly portrayed as being a pornographer, dog rapist, child rapist, pedophile, wife burner, member of an international child porn ring, drunk driver, being listed on the California registry of sex offenders, using the Internet to "groom" children for sex,  being investigated by the FBI, a threat to his neighbors...and more.

The attacker used multiple false names and multiple websites including Facebook in the attack. He published Michael's photo, a picture of his house, his address, his phone and fax numbers, and a link to a map to direct people to the house. He told neighbors that Michael is dangerous. The attacker's apparent supporters called for Michael's caging, castration and killing.

The attacker published two online petitions directed to Connecticut Governor Rell to try to get Michael put on the Connecticut list of sex offenders
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Silver Sands Books was accused of  distributing books for pedophiles.

The attacker tried to get printer Lightning Source to stop printing and distributing Michael's books, accused the printer of breaking the law, and threatened to sue them.

Due to a computer glitch, Michael's books were temporarily unavailable on Amazon. The attacker falsely claimed that the books were removed because Michael is a pedophile.
 

Michael's friends on Facebook and neighbors received messages falsely accusing him of horrible crimes.
 
Michael responded by reporting the attacks to the FBI and police, contacting his friends. contacting the website operators who published the lying harassment, blogging and—of course—starting to write a book about the ordeal. Since Michael was attacked for writing, it's only natural to write about the attacks.

From the back cover:

Early on a Saturday morning in the summer of 2010, Michael N. Marcus received an alaming call from an old friend. The friend said that she had received an email saying that Michael was a convicted child rapist, published child pornography, burned his wife, was in prison for four years, drove drunk, used the Internet to find children to have sex with, was part of an international pedophile ring, was a threat to his neighbors, and had even RAPED HIS DOG.

As shocking as these false accusations were, things rapidly got worse.

The anonymous accuser sent similar emails to Michael's friends, relatives and business associates and members of the media, wrote accusatory letters to newspapers, set up online petitions to have him put on a list of sex offenders, and established a libelous blog with a huge number of false accusations. He even published pictures of Michael and his house--and directions to get there.

The attacker created multiple false identities to join in the attack, formed a phony organization to add credibility, and tried to halt printing and sale of books Michael wrote. People called for Michael's imprisonment, castration and execution.

From the very beginning, there was only one obvious suspect, but police and the FBI could not prove who the perpetrator was. Marcus was able to get some lies removed from the web, but some are still there--and may remain there for as long as the Internet exists.

Under the protective umbrella of the First Amendment, companies that host websites allow anyone to say anything about anyone...and some people will believe the most absurd accusations without any effort to verify them.