Between calls and text messages, local blogger Kurt Gardiner’s phone rang almost 150 times from 7 p.m. on Saturday, Jan. 2 to 11 p.m. Sunday, Jan. 3.
Apparently, someone posted the Hoboken resident’s cell phone number on Craigslist.com along with various ads, including one offering free tickets to the Jets playoff game.
Another post purported to be from “Mrs. Gaffney” offering to pay workers $23.58 per hour to clean three floors.
A third post offered a free plasma TV, furniture, and a bike.
Gardiner filed a police report for harassment. He also told the police that he thought the attack might be in retaliation because he has a local blog called the Hoboken Journal, in which he posts his political views. In the last year, many of his views have been in favor of current Mayor Dawn Zimmer, who ran in several election battles last year.
His phone rang 150 times in 24 hours.
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After he also documented the incident on his website, Gardiner received a call from a local man who claimed to be the guilty party. The anonymous called admitted to the cyber-prank and told Gardiner that certain comments from readers on his site had set him off.
The man sent a letter of apology to Gardiner that was posted on the site: “I did a low life thing and my actions may cause me a demise locally and I can not change that; what is done is done and I must answer to what comes my way.”
The anonymous prankster also called the Reporter to claim responsibility after the Reporter began writing about the police report on the incident, but would not give the newspaper his name.
The man claiming to be the prankster said he was angry that certain commenters on Gardiner’s site were posting “slanderous” remarks about his business.
The anonymous man also said although he reads and contributes to a competing blog, that blog’s owner had nothing to do with the Craigslist stunt.
The anonymous man told the Reporter his prank was “very inappropriate.”
“It’s been blown out of proportion,” he said. “I’m not a bad person.”
He said he would not release his name, and said he doubted police would find him since he used a proxy to hide his computer’s IP address.
Gardiner decided not to press charges for harassment, and although he knows the name of the prankster, he has not released it.
The apology letter to Gardiner also included an apology to a frequent reader and commenter on Gardiner’s site, “KatieScarlett.” The woman who uses that screen name contacted the Reporter and said the man who pulled the Craigslist stunt has harassed her online in the past as well, making comments about rape.
Free speech?
Gardiner has a policy that he will remove slanderous material from his site, and he asks readers to e-mail him when they see something of a questionable nature.
“Blatant and provable lies and slander will be deleted,” his website states.
He has pulled down vulgar or threatening posts before, including one from a commenter he suspected was the anonymous prankster.
Personally, he said he will continue to run the site even though he has sustained several personal attacks, but they were always in the forms of words on a screen.
“I’ve received numerous anonymous attacks about my weight and other aspects of my personal life,” he said.
On allowing free speech but limiting harassment, Gardiner said, “It’s a constant balancing act.”
He has recently eliminated anonymous commenting, and now asks users to pick a screen name before they post.
Another job hoax
Last year during the May mayoral election, an unknown party distributed flyers in Manhattan and posted similar ads on the internet offering election work for people if they came to the Hoboken headquarters of candidate Peter Cammarano.
Roughly 100 people showed up. Police took down the names of the unhappy out-of-towners who spent money to come to Hoboken for work that day. Some even said they had taken off work from their day job to come to town for a payday.
Timothy J. Carroll may be reached at tcarroll@hudsonreporter.com.