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| Author Rachel Ann Nunes |
I have posted about this before, several times, but I feel it's important to continue to talk about it. Just over two years ago, in August of 2014, a friend of mine, Rachel Nunes was contacted by book reviewers who were concerned that Ms. Nunes might have been plagiarized. A book that had just come out, The Auction Deal by Sam Taylor Mullens, was, according to these readers, almost word for word like a book that Rachel Nunes had written called Love to the Highest Bidder, (its name has since been changed to A Bid for Love) and which had been first published in 1998.Hoping that it was just a misunderstanding, Rachel Nunes reached out to Sam Taylor Mullens, asking for some sort of explanation, and a quick end to what she wanted to believe was just a mistake.
This began a nightmarish time in Ms. Nunes' life. Not only was it true that Sam Taylor Mullens had plagiarized Ms. Nunes novel, changing little more than the POV and adding sex scenes, but she decided not to own up to what she did when confronted about it. Instead of coming clean, Tiffanie Rushton (the real name of the plagiarist which I haven't mentioned before in my posts about this case) decided to lash out at Ms. Nunes. Using an army of sock puppets, Rushton pretended to be a multitude of supporters for herself, and attacked Ms. Nunes online, attempting to frighten her, and hurt her reputation as a writer and as a human being. Pretending to be various people, Rushton told one lie here, and another lie there to Nunes and others in order to keep from being found out and held accountable. As a friend and a fan of Rachel Nunes, I was outraged for her sake. I know what it feels like to be attacked verbally and online by someone who is determined to frighten me and bully me in whatever ways he thinks will effectively hurt me in order for him to get what he wants, or avoid responsibility. That was exactly what Rushton was doing to Rachel Nunes. A person who ironically, had not wronged Rushton at all, but instead had been wronged by Rushton already. Rushton was not content to slap Rachel across one cheek, but when Rachel tried to stand up for herself, Rushton decided it was appropriate to slap her across the other cheek as well.
Rachel Nunes began a case against Tiffanie Rushton, wanting to hold her accountable, and stop her from harassing Nunes and others, as well as to stop her from plagiarizing others' work. Even then, Rushton's harassment did not stop.
Following the case from what I could see online, and what I learned directly from Rachel Nunes, I became more and more astounded. Bloggers and book reviewers who came forward to stand up for Nunes would become the victims of Rushton's vitriol as she attempted to discredit these people as well. More and more things kept happening. It was uncovered that Nunes was not Rushton's first victim; Sgt. Chase Weston, a soldier suffering from PTSD had written a stirring real life account of the day he was wounded, and Rushton had stolen that to begin an earlier book. Later it came to light that many of the names of Rushton's sock puppets were the names of children who had attended the school where Rushton taught. Later, Rushton started impersonating the parents of these children, threatening bloggers and other supporters of Nunes if they didn't take down the blogs talking about Rushton's unethical actions.
As of the writing of this post, it is August 2016. The month that Nunes had hoped the court date would be where Rushton would have to answer for herself and everything could be resolved. That date has not yet come. I hope it does, soon.
Read more about this situation here: John Doppler's Blog
here: Rachel Nunes' Blog
and again here: Standing Against Plagiarism
