THE REAL STORY (PART III)
Ten months later I'm finally recovered from the lung disease and feeling like myself again. We're getting into the holiday season again and I'm so excited, since the previous year I was so sick during the holidays. We've put our Key West adventure behind us…until one morning just before Thanksgiving. One of my co-workers takes me aside and tells me there's some sort of video of me or pictures of me in Key West naked. My heart nearly stops! Of course I know exactly what she's talking about, but, pictures and video? I get pretty nervous but, decide to play it cool and just pray it isn't anything.
But, on Christmas day my world comes crashing down! We're getting ready to have all our family and friends over when I notice there's a message on our phone. When I retrieve the message my life changes for good. It's an anonymous caller, a woman with a very evil sound. She said she just wanted to let me know that there's video of me in my entirety playing all over town. Then finishes by saying…"so, Catherine, you prissy little bitch, your days are over! Have a very Merry Christmas!"
The next day I go into work prepared to quit. I felt there was someone who wanted so badly to hurt me, all I could do was give them what they wanted to make them stop. They wanted my career to end. I was so scared of what this could do to all the people in my life and to my station that I loved. So I felt if I resigned maybe it would go away and whoever is trying to make this so bad for me will stop. When I go to resign, I'm surprised my boss knows exactly what I'm talking about. He says he's known about his video for some time, but, didn't know what to do about it and hoped it would just go away. At first, he was willing to let me resign. When I went to my desk to start cleaning it out though, he comes to me and says he talked to the general manager and they decided I should take a week off while they try to figure out what needs to happen. But, soon my boss let me know I have no choice but to resign. He demanded the resignation letter when he discovered I was rethinking a resignation and considering the possibility that maybe we could get through it together. He wanted me out, so he won. I was just too scared to fight.
After word was out that I resigned because of nude images circulating things went crazy! Everyone in the local media begins talking about it especially the radio stations. So, when one station I respect a great deal invites me to come on live and talk about it, I feel I have no choice but to tell the whole truth. There were so many "mistruths" developing. Soon media from towns all over the country and the national media wanted the story. I did the same with them…I fessed up!
The support that started coming my way was incredible. E-mails, letters, phone calls! I was so grateful and still feel so blessed for the many who reached out to me.
The next step was to figure out who was responsible for these pictures and video. We had a real good experience with the guy who took the pictures, he was very cooperative and helped us pull as many pictures as we could off the internet. He also gave us copyright ownership to the pictures so we could control it ourselves. But, as far as the video went we filed a federal lawsuit against a number of websites and companies.
The main defendant was a company in Florida that is similar to "Girls Gone Wild." They did the videotaping and were making some pretty good money off me without me ever signing anything. The lawsuit ended in a settlement, and that main defendant turned out to be quite cooperative too. Not quite the devil we thought. Now we own the copyrights to the video too. So, again, we have control of that as well with the law behind us.
We were able to get the majority of those exploiting me on the internet to stop! Yeah, we are well aware there are few websites that try to get my pictures back up. But, as soon as we find them, the pictures are not up much longer.
