Harassment, Stalking, Misconduct Ex-boyfriend is harassing my wife from the US. What can we do?

[ConcernedAbroad]

He e-mails her at work, writes letters and postcards (sometimes even postmarked from here in Japan), calls her office, makes veiled threats, and even harasses her family and co-workers. He's damaging her reputation at work, too. She works for a prominent Fortune 500 company, who shall remain unnamed, and I'm worried that while she won't get flat out fired for it, someone above her might use this as bias towards her when she's being evaluated. That sounds harsh, but nevertheless it's horrible for her reputation at work. She's busy with her job and I'm going back to school and we don't have a lot of time to work this out. And, maybe this is a common trait of harassment victims, she thinks it's a huge hassle and it seems that she would rather ignore him and wait to see if he'll ever stop. It never stops, though. She's contacted her legal department at work and they were no help at all, actually quite shocking how little help they were, and I've suggested she file a complaint about them. I've suggested she find a lawyer here in Tokyo that has partners or some sort of connection in the states but she hasn't found one that will return her inquiries. The ones she's found that seem helpful don't return her calls. Maybe they're taking on bigger cases or specialize in other areas of law...

Anyway, I've suggest she find a lawyer to send him a cease and desist letter. She's on board with the idea but is worried that if he doesn't follow it, she'll have to appear in court in the U.S. and waste valuable vacation time and spend copious amounts of money.

This can't be the case, can it? What should we do?

 

[army judge]

There's nothing that can be done to educate a boarish, uncouth, savage.
Take a hint from psych 101 - if you don't respond to the an unpleasant stimulus from an unfriendly organsm, the organism will soon extinguish itself. It derives pleasure from hurting or frightening others. Ignore it, it'll soon slither away hissing loudly headed back under the slime oozing rock and rotting piles of guano in the darkened cave from which it recently emerged.

She can block his texts and emails marking them as spam, if need be.
She can change her mobile number and even request her IT Department to change her email addy.
I'd recommend avoiding social media until the toxic little vermin has disappeared.

 

[shrinkmaster]

Most email clients have a means to block emails that should be first action. Next if letters are coming to her work let work deal with it. Turn in these letters tell your employer you have asked this person to cease. In mean time block all means to contact best you can

 

[ConcernedAbroad]

One of the postcards mentioned, one of the ones postmarked from Japan, is a photo postcard of the front of her mother's house in nearby suburban Yokohama and it contains some of the aforementioned vague, veiled threats. Is that useful to a lawyer? She collects all of the post and saves all of the e-mails in the event there is someone that can take action. Oh, and I forgot to mention he never uses a return address and it's usually postcards.

Also, this guy is very tech-savvy and seems to have an extraordinary amount of time on his hands. He always makes a new e-mail address whenever he's blocked. I think he's even capable of re-routing his IP address. And she's already changed her contact information so many times, it will look bad if she keeps doing it. Especially in Japan where business card exchanging is held in such high regard. Even when she does change her contact information, he can call her company's reception and get connected to her department. I'm not sure if she can strictly only accept phone calls from her direct line...

I agree with the social media suggestion and said this long ago but she's glued to Twitter, Facebook, Mixi, et al several hours of the day. I can't comprehend why anybody would so adamantly continue to use social media even when they're getting stalked, but oh well.

She said security at her job weren't any help but also said the last time she saw them was 2 years ago. I suggested she see them again and try to not be given the runaround.

I suggested her getting me to meet him somehow and telling him to back off and knocking out his teeth if it came to it. She wouldn't go along with that. Then I suggested I meet him and pretend that we've split and I'm upset with her (he's found another of her ex's contact information and is in touch with him, it's all very pathetic and stalker-ish) and wear a wire (if that's legal here) and try get him to say something incriminating but she wouldn't go for that, either.

We've got a lawyer's contact information through a friend of her's that says he may be able to take on the case. She's having me call him soon because she thinks her legalese English is poor, and I'm going to, but I thought I'd run it by here first. You can't just harass people all you want and get away with it because you're overseas, can you? In this day and age?

 

[shrinkmaster]

I would avoid getting involved that might only escalate things or even have them turn violent. Tell her to take everything she has to an Attorney for advice. In mean time since much of this is happening at work she should discuss this with her employer. Keeping her employer in the dark on this might make things worse for her at work. Its possible the Lawyer wont talk to you as he/she would be getting everything second hand and YOU are not his/her client

 

[army judge]

The Japanese authorities can't touch the little roach outside of their sovereign territory.
Wherever the roach is squatting these days, let's presume it's somewhere within the USA, won't be concerned unless he was involved in terrorist activities.

Heck, it's so prevalent these days, that if you were in Colorado, and the little insect was in Ohio, no one would care. Even if a prosecutor would care, it'd take much more than what he's doing to get law enforcement involved.

I'll make it clearer, OP. Say she lived in Cleveland, and he was harassing her from Cincinnati, not so much as a raised eyebrow over his shenanigans. However, depending on how long they've been separated, some kind of domestic abuse statute might be used. The best a victim of the roach could get might be a restraining order, if they resided in the same county. A US restraining order, as would a Japanese restraining order (assuming they even issue them), wouldn't be any good across the Pacific.

One thing you might consider, don't get physical with the little insect. Stay as far away from this as you can. I hate to say this, but you might not know the entire truth. If I were you, I'd stay out of this. Watch everything for a couple of months, someone will squally slip up and then you could learn the NAKED TRUTH.

Finally, they're too far apart for him to attempt anything physical with her, as in violence. People do engage in long distance affairs these days.