Bloomberg reporter Dune Lawrence relates her two-year online ordeal at the hands of Benjamin Wey, a disgraced financier and harasser who posts crudely libelous "news" stories about her (and other targets) on a fake tabloid news site established for that purpose.
In September 2015 the FBI arrested the man behind TheBlot, one Benjamin Wey. Not for smearing me or the other people he imagined were his enemies. He’s primarily a financier, and he was charged with securities fraud and other financial crimes involving Chinese companies he helped to list on U.S. stock markets. The U.S. Department of Justice alleges Wey pocketed tens of millions of dollars in illicit profits that he funneled through associates overseas and back into accounts in the U.S. Wey denies the charges. A trial has been set for March 2017.
Meanwhile, TheBlot’s lies about me still pop up online. The same is true for a young woman who won an $18 million judgment against Wey and his companies for sexual harassment and defamation, a journalist who wrote about her, a retired Nasdaq official, and a Georgetown University law professor. As Wey, 44, awaits trial, he regularly posts Blot articles calling all of us, and others, frauds, racists, and extortionists. He’s found a way to exact revenge with few consequences, and he’s milking it.
Wey seems to be a consummate internet creep. Here's how he reportedly responded to the official request for comment that Bloomberg insisted she send him:
“Howdy! Ni Hao! Hello! I am Benjamin Wey—your old friend. You know me well so let’s get to the point. I am an independent investigative reporter and I like TheBlot Magazine… Voice for the Voiceless, millions of readers a year. Investigative reporters are evaluating publishing new stories about you, your peculiar money entanglements with illegal stock short sellers (Roddy Boyd, Jon Carnes etc) as their bribed mouthpiece, your alleged extramarital affairs with a man calling himself ‘niu bi’—‘a cattle’s d—’—in Chinese on your own Twitter page, as well as your racist attitude towards the Chinese people. Because you just reached out to me again after two years of peace, you just did yourself a favor by reviving our interest in you. …
