Hilary Barry: It's been a harrowing week in the news,
so now it's something much lighter and more fun.
It's time for New Zealand's favorite pop culture reporter,
David farrier.
David: What do you make of New Zealanders so far?
Me? Uh, I think that they're... They've been nice.
Everyone has been cool so far.
David: What's the main thing you're trying to achieve here?
Because obviously you've created a bit of a--
survival.
He's dead.
- Now we're gonna spin around. - Yeah.
Whoa! Holy!
It's so tiring. Whoa!
David: And what's your nickname that you've got now?
The donkey lady.
Lady: Look out! Oh, look, we're going
- to have a reporter kicked.
It's quite a kick.
David: I can't say I've ever interviewed anyone
that looks exactly like you before.
Really?
David: I've made a career out of looking at the weird
- and bizarre side of life.
So when I discovered a strange video online,
I knew I'd found my next story.
Man: It's good. It's good.
David: An American company called Jane o'brien media
was running a monthly event.
Young athletes from anywhere on the planet could apply.
If selected they got free flights to la,
four nights in a really nice hotel and $1500 cash.
It was called competitive endurance tickling.
Man: You're with the cet,
a competitive endurance tickling group we got here.
And, uh, first of all I'd like to give a shout to you,
Jane o'brien media, for making this happen.
- Thanks, Jane. - We all appreciate it.
Fuck off!
Guys! Oh, my god!
David: Their Facebook page was popular,
with thousands of likes.
And with everyone in Adidas gear,
it seemed to be some kind of tickling league.
David: It was one of the strangest sports I'd seen.
Man: No!
David: So, of course, I told Jane o'brien media
I'd like to do an interview.
Instead of getting a yes or no, I got this.
Woman: "To be brutally frank,
association with a homosexual journalist
is not something we will embrace.
We desperately do not want a homosexual participant base
applying for this project.
My concern is that your journalistic style, fan base,
and reputation in your own country.
Regards, Debbie kuhn, Jane o'brien media."
David: It was a strange response,
especially considering the sport did seem slightly...
Gay.
And over the coming weeks, Debbie and Jane kept e-mailing.
Woman: "The competitive reality tickling
is a passionately
and exclusively heterosexual athletic endurance activity.
We have recently read a googled article about the knowledge
of your living with a homosexual partner
becoming quite a stir in New Zealand."
"The remainder of the globe does not in all corners
share some of the more liberal acceptance of your lifestyle."
"To me anything concerning homosexuality
is at best an objective disorder."
"Shame on you!" "Little gay kiwis." "Faggot."
David: It was hard to take the insults seriously,
given what Jane was producing.
If anything, it made me more curious than ever.
Woman: Your call has been forwarded
to the voicemail for Jane o'brien media.
David: With no one picking up the phone,
I got my geeky friend Dylan to do some digging
into this mysterious company
and this overly aggressive woman.
Dylan: So, I'm going to just scroll up. So here we go.
So, it's janeobrienmedia.Com.
It's registered to nederdietsen.
David: He discovered that while Jane o'brien media
seemed to be operated out of America,
it was owned by a company in Germany called nederdietsen,
which owned nearly 300 domain names all related to tickling.
This tickling wormhole was getting deeper,
so Dylan and I blogged about what we'd found.
Man: So, the pay's good.
Man: What? Okay, hold on.
David: Our story got a lot of attention,
being picked up on websites like reddit
and an American podcast.
- Man 1: Back up. Back up. - Man 2: When I say
competitive tickling, what do you think I'm talking about?
Man 1: I mean, I think you're talking about, uh,
some sort of organized sport--
- man 2: Yeah. - ...Of tickling.
Man 2: Basically what happened was this kind of blew up
on the Internet this week, because a dude in New Zealand,
a reporter, like, happened across this Facebook page.
Man 1: But is it just for fun? They just...
I mean, obviously it's just for fun?
Man 2: Is it just for fun?
- It's tickling.
Man 1: Sorry, I don't think that question's ever been asked
about tickling before. It's like a martian question
- about tickling. - "Is it for fun?"
David: People were so interested by what we discovered,
Dylan and I decided to make a documentary
about this utterly bizarre subject.
Two weeks later,
we heard from Jane o'brien's New York attorney,
Romeo salta.
He'd recently made headlines in a case
involving a gay porn star
who chopped a man up
and mailed his body parts to some politicians.
Things certainly weren't getting any less weird.
His letter told us to stop what we were doing, or else.
Soon we were receiving e-mails from salta telling us
that legal action had been filed in the us.
I had no money to hire a New Zealand lawyer,
let alone face the American justice system.
Then, to top it all off, Jane o'brien media told us
they were flying three people across the world from New York
to New Zealand to see us.
They're clearly serious about stopping this documentary.
Jane wouldn't tell us what flight they were arriving on,
but she did tell us the day.
So from 05:00 am, I waited at arrivals.
Not sure what to expect,
I figured I'd disarm the situation
with a rainbow-colored sign.
David: How's it going?
I thought I'd make up a good welcoming sign.
Good. How are you, sir?
That's all right. I thought I'd arrive. How was the flight?
Oh, good. Air New Zealand?
Oh, good. Hey, guys.
Kevin, nice to meet you, sir. David. Nice to meet you.
You can. I gift this to you.
As a sign, I thought it was pretty good.
Well, look, let's line up a time to meet this week.
Marko:
David: Tomorrow?
- Adam: - Marko:
David: Okay, tomorrow works well.
- Kevin: - Marko:
David: Oh, that's okay. It's the New Zealand hospitality.
- David: You can get me there. - Kevin:
David: Yeah, we're just rolling from the beginning. Yeah, yeah.
Okay. We've got a thing in New Zealand,
we're okay to film in public spaces.
So I'm just following the journey.
Okay, all right. Well, we're--
Adam:
It's not--
David: Okay. Well, I mean, we're shooting a documentary,
so we'll keep... it's a--
David: Mm.
David: Okay.
Okay. We're okay to film in public spaces in New Zealand,
so we're doing that here.
David: All right, we'll see you soon.
- Marko: - David: Okay, sounds good.
All right, see you soon.
David: No worries. We'll talk soon.
Marko:
David: Hey, Marko. It's Dave farrier. How are you?
Yeah, good. How are you settling into Auckland?
Okay. No, that sounds good to me, I think.
Just, Dylan and I both talked, and we just weren't confident,
or didn't think it was a good idea
just to go straight to a room. Maybe it's a cultural thing.
But a conference room
- um, of your choosing, - Marko: Okay.
Whether it's at the Hilton or elsewhere, is absolutely fine.
Marko:
Marko: And, um...
David:
Marko:
Dylan:
Marko:
Dylan:
Kevin:
Dylan:
Kevin:
Dylan:
Kevin:
David: Sure.
Dylan:
David:
Kevin:
David: Kevin didn't take to Dylan very well
and wants to meet me alone.
I quickly make this covert piece of technology.
A camera in a coffee cup.
Kevin: What's the end game here? What do you get at the end
or even if you get everything you want?
- David: Mm. Mm. - And what are we risking here?
You know, do we really want someone coming after you
with all that money?
I've known a lot of rich people in my life.
I've worked for a lot of them.
They don't work by the same set of rules.
They don't dangle them out of buildings any more,
but they don't have to.
And that's the thing. They start suing,
and you're done halfway through or a quarter of the way through
because it costs so much to defend yourself.
David: So unless... Essentially, I mean,
unless we stop the doco, we're gonna be fucked.
Really. It seems that's what it comes down to.
Kevin: I'm not gonna use those words directly,
because that wouldn't be prudent.
But... let me rephrase. Unless you stopped...
Unless we can figure out a way to ameliorate that situation,
we all are.
David: Facing lawsuits and a company with deep pockets,
I wondered if we should just walk away.
But Dylan was part of this now
and didn't want to give in to a bunch of bullies.
Kevin: Dylan wants to pursue this on his own?
David: Uh, I gather from what he's saying, yeah.
Kevin: Okay. Um, if Dylan wants to do that,
Dylan does... Dylan will do that.
If you don't want to do that, then just walk away from it.
David: Yeah.
Kevin: And I will... Dylan will be dealt with accordingly.
How was school?
Marko: The main thing, David, you know, that I wanted to tell you is that
I think that you're brilliant.
And that you have a great career.
So I was really, really happy to find out
that you wanted just to distance yourself from it.
And I don't understand why Dylan would not want to.
What I'm worried about too, I know Kevin says,
"well, if he wants to go ahead with it,
let him go ahead with it."
But he'll become a real target, and believe me,
it will be really ugly for him.
And I would... I would hate to see that too,
because I know he has a family
and, you know, he's probably, uh, a good bloke down deep.
David: I've never heard threats like this in my life,
and all of this over some tickling!
Kevin and Marko fly back to America.
And a few days later, Dylan and I follow.
Something about bullies with way too much money
has convinced me I shouldn't drop it.
Plus, we think there's a competitive tickling shoot happening this week.
We've reached out to nearly a hundred boys in the videos,
but they all seem too nervous to talk.
Finally tj agrees to meet us.
We met Kevin Clarke downtown la somewhere.
I can't remember exactly where it was at, but it was a studio.
He seemed pretty normal at the time.
My first impression of him, you know, he was just, like,
kind of... Kind of a little weird.
You know, I was young at the time,
didn't think nothing of it,
and I was like, "cool." You know, $2000 or whatever,
"yeah. It's gonna be cool."
It was actually a hard time for my family.
A family member of mine was going through cancer, and money was tight at the household.
So I was a little bit desperate at the time as well for money, working on the side,
and doing what I can. So when i heard this dollar sign,
I was like, "yeah," you know, "I'll definitely do that."
And then I went inside
and noticed that it was all guys in there.
And that's when I was like, "oh, dang!" Like...
And I didn't know I was gonna get tied down.
I had no idea what it'd be for.
Honestly, I was like, "okay, what?"
At that point I was like, "all right, you know what? It's already going down.
I don't really know what it's for,
but hopefully it never gets out."
No, no, no. Not any fuckin'...
Ah! Fuck! That actually tickles, dude.
Ah! Fuck!
Being violated on so many different levels right now.
There was other athletes. There was mma guys.
There was a bodybuilder,
and then there was a couple of actors, normal actors.
I've seen some of them on commercials,
TV commercials. Normal guys.
Like, completely normal people.
Get the fuck off my feet!
It was a torture project.
That's what I believe Kevin Clarke told me.
There was something to do with even a military tactic, or something like that.
He was gonna do...
I think he said Jane was doing a project
on using tickling as a military tactic.
And at that point, I...
I knew it was complete bullshit, you know?
I was like, "okay, the military is gonna use tickling
as a torture tactic?"
Fuck!
David: When did the video come back to get you?
About a year, maybe a little more, ago.
I would Google myself once in a while,
to read old articles
or see what teams might have listed me in an article
or try-outs.
And to my surprise, a video was on YouTube.
Hello. I'm tj, and I'm here on a tickling competition.
And, uh, first question is: "Are you ticklish?"
Well, obviously I'm ticklish if I'm here, so,
that's kind of a silly question. But, uh...
It was just me sitting in front of the camera
talking about the, uh, tickling process.
Just weird things. And so I was like, "okay, it's not that bad."
"When you are asked, 'are you ticklish?'
how do you normally respond and why?"
Normally, I say, "no, I'm not ticklish."
So I emailed Jane and asked her to take the video down.
She didn't ever reply.
So I took the matters into my own hands,
and I, uh, told YouTube that
uh, they're illegally using my name.
So YouTube took the video down. That's when it all started.
Woman: "Now, I am laughing."
"I don't think you've grasped the magnitude
of what you have provoked."
"I'm interested to see how you handle the fallout.
So far, badly." "Regards, Debbie j. Kuhn."
That's when this Deborah person popped into my life.
I mean, just all hell broke loose.
Every kind of video search you can find, it was up there.
And then it pops up in my emails,
and then it pops up more on YouTube,
and it just starts appearing everywhere.
This video... Just, all of them.
All of them start blowing up.
And there was threats. It said, "watch out!
Your family better watch out
because we're gonna put your last name to shame.
Any time you search your last name, it's gonna pop up."
Like, direct threats.
They ended up making a website,
putting my personal information:
My name, my address,
my personal phone number, my email address,
all with just dumb lies.
Then Debbie kuhn starts going off on me left and right,
sending emails to the high school that I coach at.
Woman: "I have additional information as a past employer.
You don't want this guy in your league.
Can you afford the distraction, the press,
with an outed gay guy having a male tickling fetish,
in which he likes to tickle and be tickled
by tied-up other gay athletes and bodybuilders?"
False accusations, saying I'm a drug addict
and I was a child molester and I'm gay, and this and that,
which none of those things have ever been true.
I've always been very proud.
The way I walk around, I'm proud of who I am.
You know what I mean? So to speak.
I'm confident in myself as an athlete,
as a person, as a player.
But when I'd go to try-outs,
the first thing I would think about is,
"well, I wonder if these coaches have looked up that video?"
And it's happened. It has happened.
I've been released from football teams.
They've told me, uh,
that I'm the best player on that team at that position,
but because it is a distraction for the media,
they don't need that attention
and they'll go with somebody else 'cause they don't feel like explaining it.
You know, and I've actually dealt with a lot of things because of it.
It's cost me money, it's cost me jobs, it's caused me harassment,
which is exactly what Debbie kuhn and Jane o'brien wanted.
So, I mean, more or less in that aspect, they've won.
David: It's obvious we're not the only ones being harassed
by Jane o'brien media.
And there are so many websites made up like tj's
which seem to exist purely
to shame the guys who've been tickled.
What goes on at these shoots, and why is she so aggressive?
Dylan's been doing some research,
and he thinks he knows where the next shoot is happening.
We stake out the studio, hoping to find out
how a competitive tickling shoot goes down.
Dominic: Okay, car.
And another car. Two cars.
David: Two cars.
Dominic: Can you see what the car's doing?
I've lost him.
- Dominic: Who's that guy? - David: Oh, that's Marko.
Dylan: Oh, yeah. And we've got four guys going in so far.
Dominic: Four guys.
Dylan: That's the guy from New Zealand.
David: Yep, there's Kevin.
David: We could hear laughter coming out of the vents.
It went on for hours,
the boys occasionally taking breaks.
You know, this is actually fucking creepy as fuck.
Dylan: Like, this feels to me like a pep talk.
Dominic: Yeah.
David: As the day wraps up,
I want to give Kevin one last chance
to talk about what's going on.
With pending lawsuits,
I'm cautious and don't want to storm into the studio.
David: They haven't locked the door.
Dylan: I think we go.
All right. Okay, let's go.
- David: We're good? - Dominic: Yep, we're good.
Dominic: Come this way.
David: Here we go. We've been spotted.
Hello, Marko. Hey, guys.
Adam, how's it going?
Adam:
Hello, sir.
Kevin:
We're not welcome here?
All right. Well, we'll head off.
You don't want to do any final chats or anything?
Last opportunity.
That's all we can do.
Turn right on bellevue Avenue,
then take the first right.
I think... yeah, uh, after New Zealand and that,
I think it's safe to say that we don't...
We don't have an interview with Kevin or Marko.
And we certainly weren't getting
any more of the competitors to talk on camera.
They were all too terrified,
hoping if they stayed quiet, the harassment would go away.
Dylan: I mean, are we making the whole thing worse for everyone
just by even being here?
David: Yeah. I think it's possible.
I worry that we make it worse for some people who...
Who've gotten through the worst of it, you know?
Dylan: Mm.
David: Jane o'brien clearly isn't being honest
about what the videos are for.
And I'm convinced that despite the Adidas gear,
it's not a real sport.
I've tracked down a man in Florida
who also makes tickling videos,
but, unlike Jane, is more than happy to talk about it.
Richard: People ask me about what is the appeal of tickling?
It's kind of like the whips and chains, you know,
bondage sort of thing, where somebody's getting flogged.
But it's just really brought down a level, you know?
It's like kind of a sadistic
exerting your will on someone else,
and having them do something out of their control
like laughing without being able to get away,
as if it's, uh, tickle torture to them.
David: And a lot of people don't seem to know
about the tickling fetish.
Do you think it's a little bit more unknown?
Oh, totally. Yeah, completely.
'Cause most people, you know, know about a foot fetish,
um, but tickling?
Most people are like, "oh, wow. Is that a thing?"
It was in 1999. I had just gotten out of grad school,
you know, so I just got a video camera,
put together a little business plan,
talked to one of my friends
and he financed me, when I started the site,
I think for $6000 or $7000.
It got pretty much an immediate response.
I was making enough after a year
to quit my job and do it full-time.
David: So this is it?
- This is it. - This is the studio.
- Mm-hm. - The chair.
And then the changing room, bathroom.
And so, this whole place is purely for the tickling?
Yes.
David: Oh, so you've got a few different spaces, right?
Richard: Yeah, yeah.
I used to do all this out of my house.
David: Yeah.
And then it was, you know, a parade of people coming in,
do all this, have to clean up.
You know, have to clean it up before a shoot.
And this way I can walk away.
Yeah, this is great.
Like, "I'm tired. Going home."
David: You're done.
Well, this is work, right? It's like work, home.
Richard: Mm-hm. Exactly.
Have you done stuff like this before for anyone else?
Or this sort of a unique thing for you?
Uh, unique thing.
I never worked for a tickling site before.
- Okay. - Man: No.
David: And what did you first think when you got the pitch?
Man: I mean, I laughed about it.
I'm like, this can't be really serious,
like, people really can't...
Enjoy watching this or getting it done.
But, um, I said, "why not?"
You know, I'm more of like the risk-taker.
I'd rather say I did something than didn't do something.
So I came down,
really was kind of nervous, didn't know what to expect.
And then... But Richard put me at ease,
and once you're trapped in you're there.
So, I mean, you might as well enjoy it.
All right.
- Richard: Okay, ready? - I think you're...
Man: Take it easy on me today.
Richard: Yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Man: That's good.
- Got to enjoy my freedom now. - Richard: Yeah.
- Because I cannot. - Richard: Wave goodbye.
I am not getting out.
Oh, shit.
The world of tickling.
So, catch your breath.
- Breath caught. - Okay.
All right.
Now tell everybody what a tough guy you are.
Just go.
Stop.
Oh, my gosh.
I hate this.
David: So when did you realize
that you found tickling to be an erotic thing?
Richard: I was very young,
you know, probably five or six. You know, very, very young.
You see something in a cartoon or a magazine that, you know,
kind of interests you as a little kid,
and for me it would be, you know, like,
cartoon characters being tickled or tied up or,
you know, that sort of thing.
And it would, you know, fascinate me,
but I had no idea why.
Richard: How do you feel?
I feel tired.
- I feel sweaty. - Can I get you some water?
Yeah, water would probably work.
Richard: I started to become comfortable with this, uh,
fetish and this part of myself,
and started to really realize that it was a part of myself,
when I...
When I got on aol
and then did a search for what I was looking for
and found that, "wow!
There's actually, you know, quite a lot of
other people that are into this."
At the time, the late '90s,
was, um, somebody that posted on the message boards a lot.
And she said her name was Terri, Terri tickle.
And Terri disisto, she put in what her real name was.
She always had a picture of herself.
You know, a blonde, pretty, college-aged girl.
And, she always posted the same verbiage.
Something like, "this is not porn.
My interest is in tickling."
And she just said that she was a tickling fanatic and...
But, I mean, these posts were everywhere.
And then, um, some videos started popping up,
you know, very, you know, innocent.
And, those are probably the first
tickle videos that I ever saw on the Internet.
David: There are still traces of Terri tickle online
from the mid-'90s,
and as Richard said, she was tickle-obsessed.
Like Jane, she also hired other people
to shoot the videos she wanted.
Well, the, uh, just strange, rich brat,
I guess you could say.
Someone who, uh, got her rocks off by, uh,
seeing guys, uh, tied and tickled.
Obviously an extreme dominatrix.
David: For most of his life,
Dave starr has worked on the edges
of the entertainment industry,
even acting in a couple of pornos.
During the mid-'90s,
he noticed Terri's online posts wanting tickling videos...
Lots of them.
Dave: Terri was, uh, out there looking for guys, uh, 18 to 23.
And I, uh, figured that it would, um...
Be something right up my alley,
based on my, uh, working in casting.
David: What sort of things was she recruiting for specifically?
Uh, tickle torture films. Tickle torture videos.
Can you turn that thing around so I can see it?
Man: All right.
- Is that all right? - Yeah, that's good.
Dave: She claimed it was for a private collection,
so I was thinking, "okay, amateur hour."
But me, I rapidly took it into a professional level.
Man 1: Okay, are you, uh, ticklish?
Man 2: Uh, yes, I am.
Man 1: Okay, step forward about a foot.
Okay. Place your hands behind your head, inter-clasp them.
Step back a little further, though.
Okay, right about there.
Okay, inter-clasp them
and do not release them at any time
during the entire tickle test.
Do your worst on this one.
Dave: We would put them in through
their stage one audition,
which is the questions and the test tickles.
Man 1: Do not collapse. Stay looking up at us.
Stay facing us.
Dave: Stage two is tying them to the table, tickling them,
flipping them over every 15 minutes,
kind of like a sausage or meat.
Dave: And then after that, uh,
we had the competitive tickling at that point.
Tickle wars and stuff like that.
And that would involve a massive production.
Woman: Okay, don't laugh.
You're giggling already, aren't you?
Well, you just might be the type of person
that David starr is looking for.
He is a Hollywood producer
working on a new reality-based game show
called tickle talk.
Dave:
Woman: It might be preferable to
eating rats or grubs on survivor
but just barely.
I'm Anne James, ksen k96 news.
David: Dave starr had steady work for five years,
even when Terri was hospitalized for six months.
During that time,
she just wrote letters specifying
exactly what she wanted in the tickling videos.
Terri: "David, merry Christmas!
So sorry, I'm in the hospital with mono."
"David, just a few things I need you to do..."
"Tell them I will send the computer as soon as I'm well."
"His name is Josh." "I hope to be online again in feb."
"I'm still sick in bed." "That's all for now. Td."
My most ticklish place is, i guess...
Definitely, like... It'd have to be in my legs...
More than, like, my armpits or my feet, I think, but...
Dave: At that time she wanted to put up
and did indeed put up a website for a while, uh,
unauthorized releasing of the videos...
Against the agreement of the talent,
and I flipped my lid.
And, lo and behold,
she goes and registers domains in their names
and then proceeds to...
Release all their content on to those particular websites.
Alden: She was, like, sending me emails about, um,
"what do you think your mother's
gonna think about this?"
And then, like, I'd be like, you know, "fuck you, bitch."
And she'd be, like... Like, totally antagonizing.
Like... I mean, she was such a cunt.
It was an assault not just on me but on my family, you know?
I mean, I couldn't have a more conservative family, you know?
I'm, I'm in a family full of republican, military people,
and I'm a... I was a professional banker.
And here I am, like, with basically a porn site,
where I'm not naked, but, i mean, I might as well be.
You know, this was ruining my life at the time.
That's how I felt.
It certainly was affecting my ability to function,
because it was so emotionally draining.
Part of the reason was because there's nobody to help me.
It's like you lose control over, you know, your life.
Dave: Well, that's when the, uh, crap started happening,
uh, with me.
Um, you decide, "okay, because I, uh,
I closed down submissions for her,
and,
I guess, I basically was like her tickling drug dealer,
and, uh, since she wasn't getting her drug any more,
she was going through tickle withdrawals.
David: And what happened?
I started, uh, receiving the, uh,
strange postcards, and the, uh, strange messages.
The, uh... the, uh, talent was starting to receive messages.
And, uh, she also deployed a thing called the phone blaster,
which was to call everybody with obscene messages.
Woman:
This person's on drugs.
This person's gotta be on crystal or something,
or taking cocaine up the ass, or something like that.
It was weird.
I'm glad to be able to make this available to you.
David: David kept a number of letters Terri had sent him
and was keen to show me the extent of the abuse.
- All right. - This is the magic stuff.
All right, what have we got?
Yeah. Uh, these are basically copies
of what she would post online.
So who's Barbara? Is that your...?
That's my mother.
David: "Hairy and horny. Hairy and horny.
Jewish tickle filmer David w. Starr
is hook-nosed, hairy and horny."
She's used that tagline 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 shit.
"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?
I mean... like, you know, stolen identity.
Stolen a social security number of a dead woman,
of two dead people, right?
It said, "David d'amato, 39, of garden city,
plead guilty for two federal counts of
computer fraud and abuse."
Nothing about the tickling,
nothing about the boys, nothing about the identity theft.
Zero. Nothing.
David: Once Fordham became aware of d'amato's convictions,
his admission was revoked.
No longer able to study law,
d'amato finished his sentence in prison.
But I've realized that didn't stop the tickling.
David: So, this is 2002. So this is writing to David starr,
who would shoot these boys tickling
and then send the videos...
To Terri. That was a, that's--
because she, what she would have is...
- Do you want your glasses? - Back in the early days...
Yeah. Back in the early days...
Terri would have friends tickle them and send them the...
They were amateur tapes.
- These are now professional? - Well, this is...
- Look at the date on it. - '02?
Look at the date.
- Is the "t" Terri? - Yeah, it's Terri writing.
So that was during, um, lock-up time.
Oh, in jail. I get it.
"David, a few other things. Email... explain my illness."
Oh. "Tell him I'll pay everything owed
as soon as the mono is better."
Oh. "Get headshots." My god! Oh, my god!
"I won't be online for a while as I am very sick." Oh.
- Couldn't stop. - No. No.
David: It seems that since the mid-'90s,
David d'amato has never stopped finding elaborate ways
to get young men to tickle each other.
His persona of Terri tickle
seems to have dropped off the radar around 2006.
A while later, Jane o'brien arrived on the scene.
We've posted this theory online,
and David d'amato is not happy.
He's hired not one, but two private investigators,
one in New Zealand and one in New York.
The message is clear. They tell us to stop what we're doing
and that d'amato has nothing to do with Jane o'brien media.
On top of that,
David d'amato has also hired a New Zealand lawyer.
He's demanding an apology and retraction
or else he'll see us in a New Zealand court.
We're now being attacked
by Jane o'brien's lawyers on one side
and David d'amato's on the other,
both insisting they have nothing to do with each other.
Once again, we're way out of our depth.
Things get even more surreal
with a phone call from Michigan,
where there's a very different tickling operation
also being run by Jane.
Jordan:
David: So, like, crime is pretty high--
- Jordan: Yeah-- - ...Here, right?
Murder, robberies, um, rape, I mean, theft.
It's all up there,
especially for being as small, um, as what it is.
We've made it now, uh,
on to the top 100 most dangerous cities in the United States.
David: Do you think on some level
Jane kind of directed things here because it is a poor area?
Yeah, you know, the poverty level, you know,
- is easy to target, you know. - Mm.
Thousands of dollars in kids' hands is...
That's a, that's a big, big deal.
David: Jane has taken a liking to one of muskegon's main sports, mixed martial arts.
A group of young, athletic men desperate for extra money.
Jordan: That's what she was trying to do, is break into the mma world.
Because it's not illegal to tickle somebody
to get out of a submission in mixed martial arts.
Like, she was trying to pitch that
because she, like,
looked it up in all the rules and everything.
But if you tickle a guy in the middle of that ring
to get out of a submission,
you might step out of the cage and get punched in the face.
Like, never in a million years out of all my fights
would I ever try to tickle somebody
to get out of a submission. Fuck, no!
David: As an ex-fighter,
Jordan was paid to recruit tickling talent in the town.
He's the only one in muskegon prepared to appear on camera.
She offered my one buddy a 2014 Chevy cruze and $30,000.
- What? What for? To tickle? - Yeah.
Just 'cause, like, she liked him.
Yeah, right. She... He was a favorite.
- Like, yeah. - Yeah.
Asians and redheads are what they call premiums.
If you get those, like, she gives you bonuses.
I'm Jordan schillaci, and this is cet.
Uh, we're gonna be having a discussion,
more of a debate today about whether tickling
is effective in a combat situation.
We ended up setting up a tickle cell. Like,
where you get guys to come in,
"we'll pay you and you pay them to audition."
No!
So we'd choose a hotel, nothing fancy,
and, uh, the guys would come in and hang out, you know,
smoke, drink, eat pizza, fuckin', and we'd hurry up
and run through, you know, five, six, seven guys.
So you're... you were looking after the tickle cell in muskegon?
Yeah, they have them set up all over the us.
Ohio, Michigan, Florida, New York.
- I mean, they're everywhere. - Right.
- And they're all for Jane? - Yeah.
Fuckin' hell.
Jordan: Well, that's where a lot of people started
getting really really upset, man.
Because all of sudden these videos
that are supposed to be just auditions were on YouTube,
vimeo, and every other site you could imagine.
- Yeah, yeah, yeah. - Nobody was okay with that.
One of the guys, Brodie,
like, his family was very upset with him. It was all over.
Like, people just picked on him and picked on him.
You know, he was underage, still in school.
And it wasn't supposed to go out on the Internet.
It wasn't supposed to be put up, and, uh,
you know, that just kind of sucked.
Because, like I said, it took Brodie...
It hit one of the hardest.
Like, this whole situation
and then being underage and his parents.
Who do you have to turn to? Who are you going to attack?
No... Jane o'brien's a ghost. Nobody knows who it is.
Jordan: Cody-bear, no.
This is Colton, this is my nephew.
- David: Hey, man. - Colton, how old are you?
How old are you?
- Three. - You're three?
You're three? All right.
- I'm David. - I'm Phil. How are you doing?
It's nice to meet you, sir.
I was really, really reluctant
when Jordan started talking about this.
And he's like, "this lady seems straight and legit, mom."
I'm like, you know, "these... these boys are young."
It's easy to believe, but when you're an old mom,
you're a little more leery for the boys, and,
I was very leery right from get-go
that the boys were gonna get into trouble
and this was not legit.
Jordan: She has all the money in the world, it seems like,
whoever it is, to be able to do this.
But they're waiting for that day that you rely
on that as a sole income.
That was her big, I think, power trip.
She waited until a bunch of us relied on that income
because that was our only source of income.
We'd been doing it for so long, we didn't think...
She waited until she had complete control,
basically, over your situation,
and that's when she wanted to yank that rug
right out from under you.
David: David d'amato. Have you heard that name before?
In relation to all this stuff?
I am literally, like, trembling right now.
Are you actually shaking?
Yeah, I'm actually, like, shaking. Like, I'm not, like...
Like I said, like, from being from here, I don't take shit.
Like, if I met up with that guy, I'd punch him right out.
And when he woke up, he'd be strapped to a chair with a...
Like, I'd be like,
"dude, you're telling me everything right now."
David: The tickling's still happening in this town.
Jordan: The money is endless.
I've never seen it stop coming and just flowing in.
And it's not just through Michigan and la,
it's everywhere.
Like, england, Australia, Italy.
I mean, the money's still coming and going.
David: This tickling empire
is way bigger than we ever imagined.
We're going to New York to find David d'amato.
I can feel the rich/bad aura.
David d'amato's address is listed in garden city,
an affluent suburb of long island.
He lives on the top floor of this building.
Lance: Lance Roberts speaking.
David: Oh, hi. It's David speaking.
I just wanted to talk to David d'amato.
Lance: Um, okay. I can't give you his phone number.
I really can't even give you any
personal information on him.
David: Okay.
Lance: Do you know him?
- Yes, I do. Yes. - You're a friend of his?
Um, I'm not a friend, no, but I've, um...
I've been trying to get in touch with him
but have been struggling.
Lance: Okay, what I do is,
I have a way of leaving him a message.
I can't guarantee that he's gonna call you back
if he doesn't know you.
- Okay, thank you so much. Bye. - You're welcome.
David: D'amato never calls us back,
and we've got no other way to contact him directly.
So annoying.
It's all right. There's still tomorrow.
David: But that night we get a frustrating phone call.
My concern is that we can't do more or less anything
we have planned for the rest of the trip.
I know. It's, like, it's fuckin' insane.
Okay. Bye-bye.
David: All the threats are worrying our film's producer.
He doesn't want us to risk provoking
any further legal action from d'amato.
So he's saying,
"well, what if you do everything that you were gonna do,
except don't go and chase d'amato down?"
And I'm like, "well, anything we do
that lets d'amato know we're looking into him again."
- Well, from now on in is that. - Yeah, literally.
So he says, "well, maybe we cut the thing short, then.
Just go home."
I know it's like... It's fuckin' insane.
David: The next day we put chasing d'amato on hold.
I want to know how on earth
a former deputy principal pays for all this.
We can't find any sign he's earning money from the videos,
but he's spending lots of money making them.
He's flying up to ten people into la almost every month
from all over the world,
putting them up in a nice hotel,
paying them thousands in cash.
And that's not even taking into account
the cost of running tickle cells,
like the one in muskegon.
Both David's parents are now deceased,
but his father's law firm is one of wall street's biggest.
Maybe David is reaping the benefits
of his father's empire.
Woman: D'amato & lynch.
Oh, hi. I just had an inquiry, um,
about the relationship with, uh, um,
David d'amato with the company, the son of George d'amato.
Is there someone I could talk to about this?
No, I'm sorry. And Mr. d'amato has been gone for a long time.
Yeah, yeah. I'm looking into the background to his son, David.
And I'm just trying to figure out whether he's got
any financial relationship with the company still.
No, I... I really don't know. I'm sorry, I can't help you.
Is there someone I could talk to at d'amato & lynch to find out?
Mm. Not that I believe, no. I'm sorry.
Okay, but there must be a way to find out, surely?
- Um, not here. Thank you.
Woman: I haven't seen David in quite a few years.
I have no knowledge of him now.
Not in many years have I had any contact with him,
so I really couldn't give you any information.
David: Yeah, he's been pretty aggressive towards me,
so I'm just trying to figure out what his motivations are--
woman: Get away from him, that's all I can tell you.
- David: Really? - Yeah. Stay away from him.
David: This was every conversation I had
with anyone even remotely related to David d'amato.
"I can't tell you anything, but stay away."
But all I want to do is the opposite.
Someone has to confront this bully, lawsuits or not.
Dylan: Okay. So, this is the car we're looking for.
It's a Mercedes benz ml430.
David: David d'amato has gone out of his way to avoid us.
We figure if we wait outside his apartment long enough,
eventually he'll have to leave.
Dylan: So, that's a Chevrolet.
Oh, hang on a second, what's this?
What's this? What's this?
Okay, there's a car there. I can see it.
Now, just in the edge. Hang on.
David: A grand cherokee.
Well, maybe just a cherokee.
But it's certainly not a Mercedes.
- David: What's the time? - Dylan: 2:44.
So we've been here for, like, four hours?
David: We've been waiting like this for days.
Dylan: Come on.
David: And it seems like he'll never come out.
Dylan: Okay. Let me just check. It's also...
It is the right type of car. It's got white plates.
Hang on. Hang on. Okay.
It's him. It's him. It's him. It's him.
He's coming out. Just wait here.
Just sit here. All right, stay cool.
Okay, I'm gonna...
Okay, he's up here.
He's in the right-hand... Is he in the left-hand Lane?
David: Yeah.
He hasn't turned right. He's in...
Whoa! You're one car behind him.
You're right in his... In his mirror now.
- I'm breathing heavily. - Yeah, same.
Dylan: Okay. Okay. It's cool.
We're right behind him now, so back off a bit,
so we're not gonna be too close.
Okay.
Just stay... stay back. Stay back, David.
We're gonna have to stop right behind him now.
You might have to take the camera off the tripod, dom.
David: Yeah, camera off tripod, please.
Dylan: Starbucks? Okay, this is perfect.
David: Okay. He'll be a while.
Okay. I'm just gonna go and have conversation when he comes out.
You've... I've got my phone if you need me.
Okay.
David: I'm about to meet this man who's been
such a threatening figure
in so many lives, including my own,
and I have simply no idea what to expect.
- Dylan: He's coming out. - David: Mr. d'amato.
- Hi, it's Dave farrier. - D'amato:
David: Hey, how are you?
D'amato:
David: I just wanted to talk to you briefly.
If I could.
Because I was just... I'm just worried about...
The legal letters you've sent me,
and I just wanted to know if we could
just talk about it face-to-face.
D'amato:
David: Is there?
D'amato:
I'm on a journalism visa, so I'm, I'm okay to be here.
I'm okay to be here. But I just...
Could we just talk a little bit about--
I just wanted to find out what's going on.
D'amato:
Because the last heard I was gonna be in a us court
and a New Zealand court,
and I really just wanted to sort this out face-to-face.
D'amato:
And I just want to sort of...
I mean, I'm not here to antagonize.
I just genuinely want to be able to help out.
D'amato:
Well, you did say you were gonna sue me.
And I just wanna sort this issue out.
D'amato:
Could you contact me if possible?
David: I went away feeling numb.
D'amato was calm, going instantly to legal threats,
which is what he's always done, I suppose, as Terri,
as Jane,
as himself.
But after all this, I still couldn't help but wonder
were we totally certain that d'amato
really was Jane and Debbie? Could we be wrong?
So we went back to where it all started,
those 300 domain names
connected to the nederdietsen group.
And that's when things went a little crazy.
On one of those domain names
there was just a directory listing,
including a folder called "my documents".
It looks like d'amato has accidently
made hundreds of his private files public
on the Internet.
There's d'amato's signature
on a nederdietsen registration form.
There's also a contract with the investigation company
he hired to look into us.
The address is exactly the same
as the address used by Jane o'brien media
when booking rooms at the Hilton in New Zealand.
Then there are documents and signatures
for Debbie kuhn and Jane o'brien...
Who's also got her own credit card.
And it turns out that d'amato
did finally get that law degree,
from hofstra university in 2011.
He's also been telling the boys to enter the United States
on a tourist visa, even though they're working.
And it's finally clear to me
how he funds his tickling empire.
As of late 2012,
he had almost six million in his checking account.
And his living expenses were being paid by a trust
established by his father.
He also inherited millions from his mother's estate
when she died in 2014.
It's all family money.
There are also lots of emails
sent from Jane o'brien's legal department.
With this in mind, we call in to see Romeo salta,
the lawyer hired by Jane o'brien media
who's been sending us all the legal threats.
We want to ask him about the correspondence
his office has sent us.
David: But I just thought you'd be curious to see...
Things been issued in la county court,
that's signed off here with your name.
There's another example of that with that email address.
Romeo: Yeah.
To that, as opposed to you. I mean, we got the one from you originally,
which we... it's fine. We don't need to talk about that.
It's very simple. I only sent one.
Dylan: Yeah.
David: Yeah.
- There's your answer. - Yeah.
Romeo: I'll see what I can do to make those stop.
Have they stopped?
Dylan: Uh, we haven't heard anything for a little while.
They're listing your address
as their corporate headquarters, though.
- My address? - Yeah, if you look at...
David: Your office.
Dylan: Janeobrienmedia.Com,
your address is listed as their corporate headquarters.
Yeah, but it's not my--
Dylan: No, no. On their website at the bottom.
Romeo: But it's not, um...
Dylan: I don't know if it's...
It says "office of corporate counsel
and New York headquarters."
Romeo: Well, that's my address.
David: Yeah.
- But it's not their... - It's crazy. But it's...
Um, I mean, is this weird to you?
That this person has taken on--
it is. Of course, it's weird.
David: Almost every legal letter we'd received from
from salta was fake.
Like so many things connected to d'amato,
they were all just lies,
lies to support his addiction to tickling videos.
I started this journey curious about a bizarre sport
called competitive endurance tickling,
but I now think this was never even about tickling.
This is about power, control and harassment.
It's about one person's twistedness
and how far that can go.
One person who's managed to shelter himself with money
to keep his obsession going.
But now it's his life exposed.
For once, it's him on camera.
Before we leave America,
there's one last phone call I want to make.
It's a name we found in the documents,
one of David d'amato's last surviving family members.
Dorothy: Hello?
- Oh, hi. Is that Dorothy? - Yes.
Oh, hi. My name's David farrier,
I'm a journalist from New Zealand. How are you?
- Okay. - Yeah, good.
Hey, sorry, it's probably a bit of a strange call
to receive out of the blue,
but I'm doing a story about, uh, David d'amato.
- Oh, in what way? - Um...
He's been... it's the...
He's sort of back to the tickling stuff again.
Oh, he is?
- Yeah, he is. - Oh, god!
Well, I will tell you that,
um, I have no contact with him at all.
I mean, did you think all this had sort of come to an end?
I did think, of course, it came to an end,
because he served time, which I'm sure you know.
Mm.
But I don't understand, um...
I don't understand why he went back to doing this.
I'm, like, in shock. How long has he been doing this?
It's never stopped.
I think he has a split personality.
He's like that fine line between genius and insanity.
I don't know if he's gay or he's asexual,
but he's never had a girlfriend that I ever knew of.
I asked my husband once, um,
if he would be upset if he found out he was gay.
And he said that he would be upset but he would get over it.
But he was an only child,
and, you know, he wanted grandchildren.
He had a very, very strange childhood.
The kids used to make fun of him all the time.
And she used to... She... his mother.
He was very close to his mother.
And his mother was very protective of him.
She never let him ride a bike or go skiing or do anything
because she was always afraid that he would get hurt.
And from what I understand,
the kids used to come around the house,
and they used to make fun of him.
And once they locked him in a locker in school.
And, you know, he was a teacher...
And they threw him out of school.
You know, I was afraid of him,
because I'm alone and, um... Yeah, I was afraid of him.
So, you know, I'm afraid of him.