PHOTOGRAPHY BY GETTY IMAGES; COURTESY OF ABC’S
NIGHTLINE;
COURTESY OF
ABC NEWS.
marieclaire.com.au 39reports: allegations they were selling
drugs, cutting them with butane; that
their customers were high school kids.
Agitated and anxious, Steven
turned to his employer, the University
of Washington, who referred him to a
pro-bono program called the Cyber
Civil Rights Legal Project, which assists
victims of sexual cyber-harassment,
cyber-exploitation and revenge porn, at
the prominent K&L Gates law firm.
On April 29, 2015, the couple met
David Bateman, a partner at K&L Gates
and one of the founders of the Cyber
Civil Rights Legal Project, and Breanna
Van Engelen, a young attorney. Their
story was so outlandish that Van
Engelen at first wondered if it was made
up – or if one spouse was manipulating
the other. Courtney’s fear seemed genu-
ine, but so many of the emails did
appear to come from Steven, who knew
his way around computers.
But after interviewing the Allens
and poring through the evidence, Van
Engelen came to believe the couple. But
that left another question: what if the
case did go to trial? Even if she could
convince a jury – which would mean
explaining the complexities of how
identity is both hidden and revealed on
the internet – could she get them to
care? Would they blame Courtney?
Though Van Engelen saw the Allens as
victims, she feared a jury might not.
In late June 2015, K&L Gates filed
a lawsuit against Zonis, seeking damag-
es and relief related to defamation,
negligence, intentional infliction of
emotional distress, electronic imper-
sonation and invasion of privacy. Two
months later, Zonis filed his own, mak-
ing similar claims against Steven.
Soon after, Courtney received an
anonymous email that ended, “Easier if
one help everyone and kill self.” She’d
had suicidal thoughts before. If she did
kill herself, she thought, that might fi-
nally make the harassment stop. Maybe
this was how she could save her family.
She went to get a gun kept in a safe. Her
hands shook and she fumbled the lock’s
combination. She began thinking about
all the things she’d miss if she pulled the
trigger: teaching her son to drive; retir-
ing with Steven. Still unable to open the
safe, she gave up. “I decided he wasn’t
going to win,” she said later. “Living was
how I was going to beat him.”O
n March 22, 2017, the
Allens, their lawyers and
the Zonises gathered in a
courtroom. Zonis, having
cycled through several lawyers, was
representing himself, with his wife
assisting. Van Engelen watched as a
colleague began questioning potential
jurors: how many of you have made a
friend on the internet? Many of the re-
sponses were exactly what Van Engelen
had feared. She summed them up: “I
don’t want to be part of someone’s Face-
book dispute. This is high school.”
Before the trial, Steven had created
a timeline of the harassment. It had so
many details it was printed on a three-
metre-long poster. This isn’t trivial,
Bateman told the jury, detailing the
false police reports, enormous number
of emails and videos. Van Engelen felt
her anxiety ease. “Right away you could
see the jurors’ faces change,” she says.
Van Engelen called Courtney as her
first witness. Courtney testified for
more than a day. She was too ashamed
to look at the jury as Van Engelen asked
her questions about the photos and vid-
eos that showed her masturbating.
Then Zonis and his wife took the
stand. Together the couple set out their
version of the story: they were Court-
ney’s friends who tried to rescue her
from an abusive husband. The Zonises
introduced emails and posts they said
were written by the Allens, but they
were paper printouts with no metadata
or digital trail to prove authenticity.When lawyers requested a forensically
sound copy, Zonis said his computer
had malfunctioned.
By the end of arguments, the
Allens’ legal team had introduced 1083
exhibits into evidence. It was a level of
scrutiny that few cyber-harassment
cases ever receive. K&L Gates’ lawyers
had spent thousands of hours digging
through the evidence. The value of Van
Engelen’s time alone was in the ballpark
of $400,000 USD.
On March 30, Van Engelen stood
to deliver her closing argument. She be-
gan by playing a voicemail from Zonis:
“How does it feel to know that I’m never,
ever, ever going to stop?” Then she
turned to the jury, saying, “Someone
needs to tell him to stop. Do not let this
be another bullshit symbolic gesture.
Hold him liable.”
In his own closing statement, Zonis
reiterated “the stuf doesn’t trace back
to me,” and talked about the diculty of
being cut of from his parents, casting
himself as a victim.
The next afternoon, the jury came
back with a decision. They found each
of the Allens’ claims against Zonis
justified, and axed a boggling sum to
each, totalling $8.9 million USD. It was
a record for a cyber-harassment case
not involving a celebrity.
“The fact other people can see it,
and they see the crazy in it, helps me
feel that I’m not insane,” Courtney said.
The Allens’ deepest hope, though, was
simple: that the harassment would end.
For more than a month after the
trial, it seemed they had got their wish.
Then one afternoon, Courtney received
a new email. It read, “pun ish men t w ill
soo n b han ded out to the wic ked. you
rti me is sho rt. mis sin g fam ily we wil
lno t. pri ce for act ion to be pai d y et it
is.” More emails followed. Courtney felt
both dread and exhaustion. It wasn’t
over. “I’d love nothing more than for us
to be left alone,” she says. “Do I expect
that to happen? No. I expect this to be
in our lives, in some capacity, forever.”
At the time of printing, Zonis had
filed an appeal. And a blog had ap-
peared in his name, where he protests
his innocence and the court’s decision.
He also describes sufering a heart fail-
ure after the trial ended and vows to
keep fighting to clear what he believes
to be his good reputation.“Do not let this be
another bullshit
symbolic gesture,” the
Allens’ law yer told the
jury. “Hold him liable”Todd and Jennifer Zonis
during their interview with
ABC’s Nightline program.CRIME