Stollznow accuses Radford of “Recruiting” AVFM to continue his harassment

Yesterday, Karen Stollznow, skeptic writer and now-notorious harassment-accuser of Ben Radford, another prominent skeptic, posted an update on her Indiegogo fundraiser stating Radford had “recruited” AVFM to “spread his word” in order to harass her even further. She also made a string of false claims including AVfM was a hate group accusing her of violating Indiegogo’s terms of use and pocketing fraudulently collected money.

Her post reads:

My harasser continues to try to spread false information about me while demonstrating his harassment. He has recruited the help of a hate group to help spread his word. “A Voice For Men”. They claim now that this campaign is a violation of Indiegogo’s terms. It is not. They claim that I am planning to just pocket this money. I am not. They claim that my insurance is covering my costs so this money is fraudulently requested. Not true. My harasser was clever in his lawsuit and included things that my insurance could not cover, like claims of fraud.

These are the same techniques of silencing the victim that many of us have encountered and suffered through. I will no longer be silent. My day in court is coming…

Stollznow's lies about Radford and AVfM (2)

Last week AVfM posted an article titled “Radford vs. Stollznow: Tempest in the Skeptic Community” which enumerated many of the claims Radford made on a website devoted to answering Stollznow’s accusations of sexual harassment, which he says have done tremendous harm to his reputation and employment life as well as his personal life. Also last week, AVfM Radio aired an edition of The O’Hara News and Editorial which featured editorial commentary by the hosts and a guest from the skeptic community named Mykeru who spoke in defense of Radford and was critical of Stollznow’s accusations and the support she received from the Atheist+ community.

No one on the editorial, administrative or news staff has ever reported being contacted by him directly concerning Stollznow’s accusations or the pending lawsuit. The issue was brought to AVfM’s attention by several members of the skeptic community expressing their desire to highlight and question the very public accusations being leveled against Radford and to explore the possible motivations behind them.

Nowhere in the article and at no point during the airing of last Tuesday’s edition of O’Hara’s News and Editorial was it said definitively that Stollznow’s Indiegogo campaign was fraudulent or that it was in violation of Indiegogo’s terms of agreement. It was suggested, however, that it may be in violation of Indiegogo’s terms of service and that Indiegogo should question the wisdom of allowing a campaign that, for which there is ample proof, is directed towards preventing a victim of libel from receiving justice in court.

Relevant quote from the article:

“…ten days ago on March 27th, [Stollznow] started a defense fund under the byline “Give a Voice to Sexual Harassment Victims” which has already raised nearly $60,000, even though there is strong reason to believe that this campaign, which is defamatory of another person, is arguably a violation of Indiegogo’s terms of use since it is widely known whom Stollznow has accused. This leads to another interesting question: are sites like Indiegogo now the go-to funding source for anyone who wants to make an allegation against someone else in court, without even providing proof of the wrongdoing to donors?”

In no part of the article and at no point of the radio show was it said that Stollznow was going to pocket the money and at no time did AVfM claim she was going to use her insurance to cover her legal expenses. At one point during the radio broadcast Robert O’Hara did suggest that anyone who donated to Stollznow’s fund-raiser was a defacto contributor to the payoff Radford was likely to receive upon winning his case against Stollznow because the evidence was so overwhelming. It was Radford himself, not AVfM who stated on his website that Stollznow had asked her homeowners insurance to pay for her legal expenses.

AVfM is not a hate site.

Insinuations that AVfM was a hate group made by the SPLC in its Spring 2012 Intelligence Report have since been retracted and the SPLC has lost its status as an unquestioned authority on hate movements. According to AVfM management, numerous claims that they and other men’s rights organizations are hate groups have been debunked, and AVfM is quick to point out that members of the Men’s Rights Movement, almost entirely without exception, reject bigotry, hatred and violence.

Stollznow’s post sparked heated reactions in the skeptic community as well as within AVfM management. Despite protests over her obviously false claims the controversial post remains on her Indiegogo page and many feel its existence is proof that she is a disturbed, if not disordered, person.

“Now, we don’t really care that Stollznow has lied about us because we get lied about all the time. It comes with the territory when you either attack ideological feminism (it garners the same type of slanderous responses that you get when you answer Creationist lunacy) or when you try to defend the rights of boys and men specifically, even when the science clearly shows that they’re in deep trouble in our educational and legal and social systems in multiple areas (even if individual men are often fine, as a group men have problems no one wants to talk about and get mad at you when you do talk about them)” wrote AVfM Director of Operations, Dean Esmay, in a string on the popular atheist website “The Slyme Pit” yesterday.

“Although from a publicity angle it’s probably not worth trying to address AVfM’s reporting (and that’s what it was: reporting) on the Radford/Stollznow case, the fact is that this response by Stollznow is probably further proof of libel and ill-intent by Stollznow. It certainly cements in my mind that she’s probably a classic Cluster-B personality disordered type.”

Mykeru, the skeptic guest on last week’s radio show, has answered with a YouTube video in which he refutes Stollznow’s accusations and asserts that it was he, not Radford, who contacted AVfM to report the story. He also denies having any personal contact with Radford concerning the matter, stating that he only met him once during a conference years ago and has not spoken to him since.