A MOTHER fears for her safety after her children’s father started a campaign against her on social media.
Dominique Ward, mother of five-year-old identical twins, is in an ongoing custody battle with her ex-partner, Micah Berkley – who encouraged strangers on the internet to harass the mother of her children.
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Berkley calls himself a computer expert who has used Artificial Intelligence in various ways to target his ex.
This includes putting up billboards saying that their daughters have been “kidnapped by their parents”, running ads on Facebook, TikTok, Instagram and YouTube with photos of their children telling them to find him, and even geo-targeting these ads to their children’s homes and daycares. children.
Berkley has also paid social media influencers to post about her children.
But perhaps the most invasive technique Berkley has admitted to employing is paying more than $10,000 in total to strangers for photos and videos of his daughters.
On your Page X, your pinned post explains that you’re willing to pay $200 per video and $50 per photo through CashApp.
In the past, he also posted on Facebook offering $100 for the address of a mother-and-child yoga class that Ward was organizing.
He also posted that he was willing to donate $10,000 to anyone who could bring the girls to him for “a peaceful and organized meeting.”
And those posts had real power, as people took many of their Berkley offers up.
In 2022, just before Christmas that year, Ward made an unplanned stop at Target to do some last-minute shopping with her daughters, then 3 years old.
She was miles from her home, in a neighborhood where she didn’t know a single person and assumed no one knew her or her daughters, she told the Chicago Tribune.
But what should have been a mundane task has turned into a chilling reminder of the surveillance she constantly faces.
The next day, she received a screenshot of a Facebook page belonging to the girls’ father, where he had posted “an open letter” to his daughters.
Berkley is barred from contact without court supervision following multiple allegations of abusive behavior against Ward.
“I saw you the other day,” the Facebook note said.
“You were in a Target shopping cart wearing cute matching clothes. You were absolutely beautiful, the most beautiful babies I’ve ever seen,” the post continued.
“You were sitting next to each other, playing with each other while your mother pushed you. Their smiles were contagious and their silliness was so familiar,” he said, before ending his post with a cryptic message to their mother.
“What you don’t know is that there is a loving community around you, sending photos and videos to Dad, keeping me updated on his progress.”
The post was a stark reminder that strangers were tracking his every move and highlighted the ineffectiveness of authorities in stopping him.
Despite seeking help from Chicago police, Cook County prosecutors and Facebook employees, Ward found little relief.
And data from the Chicago Police Department indicates that this is an ongoing systemic failure.
The data shows a dismal response to complaints of electronic harassment and cyberstalking, with arrests made in just 2% of such cases over the past decade, according to Chicago police data.
Since Ward first reported his concerns in 2021, the arrest rate has been even lower, around 1%.
“How can I protect my children if I can’t even go to the store without someone following us or chasing my daughters?” Ward asked.
“We have targets on our backs every time we leave the house, but no one takes it seriously,” she continued.
“It’s like no one’s going to care about this until I die,” Ward said.
“And then it will be too late.”
In a telephone interview with the Chicago Tribune, Berkley confirmed that he wrote the posts requesting photos of his daughters.
He described his actions as “technological warfare,” a modern way of challenging custody and child support decisions.
“I heard she’s scared,” he told the Tribune.
“She should be scared. She should have been terrified. I want her to worry about who is waiting around the corner whenever she goes out,” he said.
Berkley’s relentless digital campaign against Ward is part of a broader issue of electronic harassment that authorities have struggled to address.
An analysis of nearly two dozen Illinois police departments found a low rate of arrests for electronic harassment complaints.
Even though these incidents increase year after year and with state laws addressing this form of bullying, enforcement remains inconsistent.
“We have great laws in place, but the problem is they are not implemented,” said Vickie Smith, former CEO of the Illinois Coalition Against Domestic Violence.
“No one thinks it’s a big deal because they don’t understand how this type of non-physical domestic violence can harm someone on a daily basis.”
The problem also extends beyond local law enforcement.
A 2023 Rand study found that few cyberstalking cases are charged at the federal level, with just 412 cases between 2010 and 2020.
Ward says his attempts to seek justice were no different from the experience of most, it seems.
Police reports show she filed complaints with the Chicago Police Department at least twice since 2021, only to be told it would be difficult to prove Berkley was behind the posts.
But Berkley acknowledges writing the messages but says he was never contacted by law enforcement about his social media activity.
Frustrated with the lack of action, Ward’s attorney, Lindsay Nathan, sought help from the FBI, but that also yielded no results.
In February 2021, a police report involving Berkley’s social media behavior was closed because Ward did not want to press charges, a claim she disputes.
A July 2021 email sent by Nathan to the Cook County state’s attorney’s office expressed frustration with the lack of response from police. Despite this, no charges were filed.
Berkley defends his actions as protected by the First Amendment, even after posting Ward’s cell phone number and the name of his therapist online, still without legal consequences.
He also used AI to create a video imitating an NBC Nightly News broadcast, accusing Ward of being “the most despicable mother in America.”
“It took me about an hour to do,” Berkley admitted.
“This is what happens when you drive a nerd crazy.”
Berkley and Ward’s relationship began in 2015, and the couple moved in together in 2018.
Despite a brief reconciliation when Ward became pregnant, they split again after the twins were born in 2019.
Berkley soon began leveraging his children for his social media brand, which thrived on the image of an involved black father.
But after the split, Berkley’s behavior worsened.
Police records state he showed up at Ward’s home in 2020 with a pellet gun, leading to charges of violating a protective order and aggravated assault.
Ward later asked for the charges to be dropped, hoping Berkley would help support her children.
As for Facebook, despite numerous reports and letters from Nathan, the social media giant only took action after intervention from political consultant Joanna Klonsky and Governor JB Pritzker’s office.
This intervention eventually led to the deactivation of Berkley’s accounts.
But that didn’t stop Berkley, who continued to pursue him through other means, including creating a website called AmericasWorstMother.com. which featured Ward’s personal information, further putting his safety at risk.
Ward recently shared her story at a breakfast to raise awareness about domestic violence, which was guarded by a police officer due to Berkley’s references to the event on Facebook.
Berkley didn’t attend, but there was someone there taking notes, demonstrating his persistent surveillance of Ward and everything she does.
Berkley vows to continue his so-called technology war, determined to regain access to his children.
“It ends with me getting my kids back. There is no other option,” he said.
Ward, equally resolute, refuses to remain silent about the situation.
“One thing I won’t do? I’m not going to stay silent about this,” she said.
“I’ll keep talking. I will continue telling my story.”
This story originally appeared on The-sun.com read the full story
