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July 7, 2007
Realtor portrayed as online sex peddler
For more than a month last fall, hundreds of men hunted Debbie,
an Internet vixen who promised ''you'll go home with a smile''
for the right price.
Their lurid messages did not go to an escort. Instead, they went
to a Realtor and married mother of two who eventually called
police.
Someone posted 26 phony raunchy ads about Debbie Blasberg --
personal cellphone number included -- on the popular website
Craigslist.com. Police are investigating a rival Realtor.
Blasberg, 44, says she received more than 700 phone calls at
''all hours of the night.'' Some callers asked her 11-year-old
daughter for sexual favors, and text messages poured in even as
she sat in the police station telling her story to a detective.
''It totally destroyed my life,'' Blasberg, who lives and works
in North Miami-Dade, said this week. ``It was a nightmare. I
almost ended up with a nervous breakdown.''
During one call, Blasberg began crying, and the man on the line
sheepishly admitted he had found her on Craigslist.
That sparked calls to her attorney, Leah Mayersohn, who worked
with Craigslist to take down the ads.
''As fast as Craigslist was taking them down, they would be put
back up again,'' Mayersohn said.
Her firm began investigating. Miami-Dade Detective John Jones
did, too, once Blasberg filed a police report.
An investigation traced several of the Web postings to the home
of fellow Realtor Dean Isenberg, 42, the police search warrant
said. Last month, detectives raided his home while investigating
possible charges of cyberstalking and unauthorized access to a
computer network.
Isenberg has not been arrested. The investigation continues.
''There's nothing I've done wrong,'' said Isenberg, who sells
properties with his wife Bonnie as the ``I-Team.''
Isenberg was upset with Blasberg, a former co-worker, for
closing a deal on a property he was also trying to sell,
according to the victim and a police report.
Blasberg ''sold the same piece of property to a company for a
lower amount than [Isenberg] had been in negotiations with
them,'' according to a police report. Isenberg ``was apparently
very upset about this and blames the victim for his lost sale
and commission.''
Craigslist provided detectives with records showing the IP
address of the user who posted the ads.
They were done with a Yahoo.com e-mail address created in
Blasberg's name. Nine of the 26 ads came back to an IP address
that belonged to Isenberg, according to police -- seven
''registered to a Dean Isenberg'' at his home address.
The rest of the ads came back to different addresses, and police
are investigating whether Isenberg used someone else's wireless
Internet service to post them.
Four of those users signed affidavits swearing they had not
authorized anyone to use their service to post ads. '
'Clearly, it is unfortunate what happened to Ms. Blasberg,''
said Isenberg's attorney, Andrew Rier. ``There is absolutely not
enough evidence to arrest Mr. Isenberg. We have fully and
voluntarily 100 percent cooperated with the investigation.''
After the raid of Isenberg's four-bedroom, two-bathroom North
Miami-Dade home, located near Highland Oaks Park and a short
drive from Aventura Mall, police seized four desktop computer
towers, two laptops and three BlackBerrys.
Charges will depend on the result of a computer analysis, which
could take months.
''It's a matter of waiting now,'' said Detective Jones of the
Intracoastal station. Word of Blasberg's ordeal reached Sen.
Jeremy Ring, D-Margate, a former Yahoo executive.
On Thursday, he advocated stricter penalties for people
convicted of cyberstalking, a first-degree misdemeanor.
''I know it's a serious problem,'' Ring said. ``There needs to
be very, very strong penalties against it.''
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