Tickled Page #5

for many, many, many times.

What did your...?

What did your mother

think of this stuff

when this turned up? I mean...

Actually, her phrase was, uh...

Here's a, uh, note that she left

me because, uh,

she would hold these for me

in the mail

and basically just say,

"here's another nasty thing."

And that one actually

is unopened.

I've never even opened

it to this date.

And let's see what our little

illustrious friend had to say.

Oh, god. So it's a card.

David:
"Roses are red,

violets are bue."

Can't spell worth sh*t.

"David w. Starr has

brought this upon you.

Perhaps you wish,

perhaps instead,

that David your failure,

not Edward, were dead."

That's a reference to

my brother, who is dead.

That's, uh, really extreme.

A little bit psycho.

But, I mean, what...? When you

were getting all this material

and some of it's talking about

your brother who

- has passed away and...

- Uh-huh.

Writing this stuff

to your mother,

I mean, that,

that must have...

I mean, that... that's not nice

receiving that on weekly basis.

Uh, no, but it was on a

weekly basis, uh, yeah.

Yeah, where did

they have the time?

- Jeez, it's a birthday card.

- Yeah.

"Happy birthday.

Edward starr dead."

This is really cruel, right?

It's very sick.

David:
The more I hear

about Terri disisto,

the more she sounds

like Jane o'brien.

To state the obvious, they

both really enjoy tickling.

They also like being in

control and lashing out.

I really appreciate it

and stay in touch.

David:
And it turns out

Terri's habits started

way before Dave starr

got involved.

I've found a journalist who'd

spent a year uncovering

the truth about Terri disisto

during the '90s.

Hal:
Terri disisto's mo

was to bait these boys

into making

tickling videos with

things that they wanted, right?

You know, I mean,

imagine being a teenage boy,

and, like, you get this random

email saying, you know,

"i saw your posting about the

phish concert, and, uh,

how would you like to go?"

Or, " I can send you

$1000 cash."

And you're like...

You're living in your dorm

at James Madison university.

You're like, "yeah, sure.

You're gonna send me

$1000 cash. Right."

Fedex pulls up in front of your

dorm the next day,

and there is ten $100 bills.

You haven't done anything.

She would just keep sending

them whatever they wanted,

you know. Computers,

cameras, more cash,

tickets to rock concerts.

Then at some point,

even a teenage boy

has all the toys

that they want.

And they say, "i... I'm done."

But I think the thing that

she hates the most was no.

It was like...

A bomb went off.

And she'd say, "well,

if you don't do it,

I'm gonna make your life hell."

"I'm gonna send clips

of these videos

to your wrestling coach."

"I'm gonna send clips of

these videos to your mom."

"I'm gonna send clips of these

videos to your grandmother."

"I'm gonna send

clips of these videos

to the president

of your university."

"I'm gonna post them

all over the Internet."

"I'm gonna pretend to be you

and do things on the Internet

that are gonna create a terrible

reputation for you."

"I'm gonna shut down the entire

college campus computer system

at your college, and they're

gonna think it's you."

And then it happened.

Debbie:
The first story I did

was because

she was attacking, um,

drexel university.

And I found the student who, um,

had made a number

of videos for her.

And when he came to

Philadelphia to go to college,

she wanted him to

continue making these videos,

and he wanted to cut off his

relationship with her.

And she retaliated

on so many levels.

Their email servers' computers

were being shut down

with these

denial-of-service attacks

that indicated that they

were coming from him.

Email-bombing the white house,

indicating that

it came from him.

Yeah, that's pretty serious

stuff when the secret service

shows up in your college dorm

and you're 19 years old.

I was just curious,

and I somehow

started contacting

Terri on aol.

She had an account.

And we would have these

chats late at night.

And I was curious what kind of

mind was behind this...

Celebrated Internet personage.

And it was,

it was kind of crazy.

We would have

these conversations,

and she would...

When she realized

that I did wine, she would say,

"oh, I'm having a

glass of chardonnay!"

And I could just hear this

voice because as it went on,

it was almost like she was

completely intoxicated

with this power

that she had to...

To be so destructive

against people.

Hal:
I got word about a kid

who refused to make the videos.

He posted that

he needed some help,

and somebody said

they would help him.

And somehow he got

emailed a file,

and he was told, "if you email

this zip file to Terri,

she will leave you alone."

And then he sent me

that zip file.

You know, and I remember

opening it up and thinking...

"Wow! You know, this is it.

Like, this is...

This is the smoking gun."

David:
The zip file contained

documents from her hard drive.

As expected, there were files

relating to tickling shoots.

But they also revealed the

true identity of Terri tickle.

Hal:
David d'amato.

She is really he, right?

Debbie:
He was an assistant

principal in a high school?

I just...

Couldn't believe it.

I don't know why,

but it just seemed...

Here is this sadistic person

exploiting these young people,

often underage,

making their lives miserable,

embarrassing them,

to an extent that it's every...

It goes against everything that

an educator should be doing.

Hal:
When I did some more

checking, I found out that

he had worked at, like,

eight schools in ten years.

Which to me was

always a red flag

that there was something

else going on.

I mean, that's more than

just sheer incompetence.

And then I found

social security numbers for her

that he had

gotten fraudulently...

With dead people's names.

So I contacted the FBI.

I turned over all my

information to them.

Within a week, they busted him.

Debbie:
We were shocked

at the sentencing

because he got off so easy.

For somebody who had done so

much damage,

to me it was just extraordinary.

And to not, to not have

restrictions on their

Internet access after that,

how could...?

And the... oh! And the idea that

he was going to law school

was just absurd.

David:
It turns out

David d'amato's father, George,

co-founded one of wall street's

biggest law firms,

d'amato & lynch, and David

got a really great lawyer.

Instead of prison, d'amato was

allowed to serve his sentence

in the halfway house

while he studied law

at his father's Alma mater,

Fordham university.

Hal:
The judge,

for some reason,

decided that he would endorse

the law school path, right?

Because, like, this is exactly

the kind of person

that should be a lawyer, right?

Somebody who has

defrauded people,

somebody who has

stolen people's identities.

A federal freakin' crime, right?

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