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A luxury-car dealer in Westchester County is being mercilessly tormented by an anonymous online troll — who derided his wife’s wedding jewelry as “another s–t ring’’ that “mommy” paid for, a new lawsuit says.
Charles Gray, who peddles high-end rides and once helped run his dad’s now-defunct dealership Respect Auto, is demanding in his suit that Meta unmask the person behind the rogue Instagram account, which he said has relentlessly smeared him as a “fraudster” and a “scammer” since December.
“Another s–t ring,” reads a post featuring a photo of Gray holding his wife’s gold-and-diamond-ring-laden hand — a snap filed with the Manhattan Supreme Court lawsuit.
“Paid for with stolen money from Charles’ victims or by Charlie’s mommy who still pays his bills. Imagine being 40 and this is all you can get,” the post adds, according to the suit, which decries the account’s “dozens of false statements.”
A photo of Gray also appeared on the suspect Instagram page with the caption, “My morals are as s–ty as this haircut & im 40 and live w my mom so theres that too,” the lawsuit says.
Gray’s suit says, “Beyond the defamatory statements, the Scammer Account has engaged in a persistent campaign to harass and intimidate Petitioner, his wife, and their family members.”
Many of the offensive posts on Instagram — which is owned by Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta — tag other luxury-car dealers and Gray’s friends and family members, the filing says.
Some of the posts also target his wife and claim that she is a “scammer” who is “complicit’ in fraud,” the suit alleges.
In the account’s most recent post, text alongside a photo of his wife with her family declares, “YOUR DAUGHTER IS MARRYING A MAN WHO IS A KNOWN FRAUDSTER and is millions of dollars in debt.”
The account somehow managed to post multiple private pictures of Gray and his wife, too — including wedding pics and a snapshot of the couple on vacation with a text overlay reading, “Couple of scammers and frauds enjoying nobu malibu on stolen funds,” the filing says.
Those photos and others only exist on Gray’s phone and his cloud backup, and he “[had] not sent these photographs to anyone,” court documents claim.
While his lawsuit states that he “has a viable cause of action against the user(s) of the Scammer Account for defamation,” it says his camp needs Meta to reveal the account’s true identity.
But while Gray says he needs Meta’s account logs and IP records to prove who is behind the page, he already suspects a culprit, according to the lawsuit.
Several photos posted by the troll were shared with “only one person” — former friend Tomás Mayer De Paulo through WhatsApp, the suit claims.
One photo that De Paulo “liked” in their private chat was the snap that later appeared on the Instagram page with the caption about the “s–ty as this haircut & im 40” comment, the lawsuit says.
Gray and De Paulo had been locked in a high-stakes feud over a $2 million loan borrowed from De Paulo’s family firm to finance the purchase and resale of an ultra-exclusive Ferrari Daytona SP3, the suit says.
The “Scammer” account appears to bizarrely “fixate” on the same exact supercar, repeatedly taunting Gray about “imaginary SP3s,” according to the Instagram page and the lawsuit.
While some of the loan has been paid back, an outstanding balance is being litigated over in Florida civil court, Gray’s suit claims.
De Paulo could not be reached for comment, and a message sent to the Instagram account did not receive a response.
Meta did not respond to a Post email, while Gray’s lawyer declined comment.
English (US)