Some people seem to think that fraud in the martial arts is no big deal. Some seem to think that pointing out that some 20- something "grandmaster" is lying is actually worse than the lies. They think that frauds really do no harm except to people too stupid to see the truth. I think the number of bodies frauds have left behind show the truth of how dangerous they can be.

The news is in. Dan Harmon, the cyber bully who I helped protect one of his victims from, is dead. Reports are still a bit sketchy, but the best sources say that his fiancé left him after he abused her and she returned the next morning to find that he had hanged himself.

Already some frauds are using his death to further their agenda. Frank Dux is openly trying to sell copies of his new book by using this. I will have a special blog about those types of vultures in the near future.

Even in death, Harmon found a way to hurt the women who walked out on him. His list of abuse against those he loved, both lovers and his own children, is long. I dealt with his history of criminal behavior, convictions and domestic abuse in the blog defending one of his victims, and the link to that is at the bottom of the page. Were he convicted in a court for hitting yet another woman he would probably qualify for Colorado's Habitual Domestic Violence law, a felony punishable by about three years behind bars. Many times, abusers make their victim blame themselves for the abuse. As they often say, "Look what you made me do!" Harmon did not go out and kill himself by jumping off a bridge, he hung himself in his place where his partner could find the body. I can't imagine what emotions she is going through after finding him. As much as people tell her that it is not her fault that he is dead, part of her will always think that if only she had not walked out the door he would still be alive. That is probably what Harmon wanted.

Many people think that frauds are harmless, but I can't begin to count all the cases of someone who lies about being a martial arts master who also have criminal records. It is actually easier to list the frauds without criminal records than list all the guys who have spent time behind bars. There are guys like James Hydrick, who tried to pass himself off as a kung fu master with psychic powers who is now in a mental hospital after molesting 6 boys whom he lured in using martial arts tricks. He also has convictions for kidnapping, torture and a few other things. There is Ron Collins, whom I have detailed a bit in my blogs as he faced the legal system. He is in a mental institution as well as I write this, and if he gets out he still has to go to court for making terroristic threats. Not to mention his prior convictions involving a 13 year old girl. There is Troy Zink, with convictions for rape and weapons charges who is suspected in the disappearance of Tera Lynn Smith over a decade ago. Nimr Hassan, who claims to have been made the head of the Koga ryu by James Mitose and who murdered an elderly man. And these are just the start. I can't even hope to list all the martial arts instructors that have convictions for rape and sleeping with their under-age students.

One case I was particularly close to was the Konigun and it's leader Bryce Dallas. Some of their claims were being investigated on a message board called e-budo. Dallas sent some of his students to try to defend him. As someone living in Japan, fluent in the language, experienced in martial arts and well- read in it's history, I kind of fell into the role as one of the point men countering what they were claiming. I started telling them that the reason Dallas himself wasn't responding and using them was so that after what they claimed proved to be wrong, he could claim they had mistaken what he had said and he could then revise his story. Things went exactly as I said. The guys had already had doubts about what they were seeing and my prophecy had a huge impact on many of them later leaving, taking their students and friends with them.

At that point, they started comparing notes, no longer afraid of the consequences. They started telling tales of teachers getting students pregnant, being organized to commit arson, violence and worse. Dallas had of course spent time in prison. They became the most vocal critics of the Konigun and were targeted by those still close to Dallas. Until Dallas died, they were hit with frivolous lawsuits, stalked and harassed. But others left the group due to their efforts as well.

After he left, one of them had his special needs daughter finally tell him that she had been molested by Dallas. I take pride in the fact that I was part of the process that got her away from her molester .  I would have liked it better if the police had found out and dragged Dallas off to jail, but I at least helped stop the abuse.

Frauds have a fundamental problem that makes them far more likely to commit grave crimes than others.

You see, most of us have an inner story that we follow. Laws stop some of us from killing other people, but most of us don't think of ourselves as someone who would kill someone else. We are not killers, and we don't see ourselves that way. Our own way of thinking about ourselves keeps us from doing things we would find abhorrent. For the majority of us, what we think about ourselves is a far stronger curb on our behavior than the law. Even so, some people manage to do some pretty vile acts while rationalizing what they do. The story they tell themselves of them being good people is still important, but they find ways around it. But even those people, if they had it shoved in their face how their rationalizations were untrue, would probably change their ways.

Frauds know that they are lying. They live the lie of being trained as a secret ninja master as a child 24/7. They can look in the mirror and know that they are not what they say they are, and they only care what others think about them. That means that the inner controls that stop most of us do not apply to them. They only care about what they can get away with. If they have an inner story with which they think of themselves, it is already so flexible that they can make their entire life a lie and be fine with it. And that makes anything else easy to sink to.

Frauds are not harmless. They leave a trail of victims behind them almost every time. Those that look the other way allow them access to more victims by their silence. As Edmund Burke put it, "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing."

I have seen frauds go to prison for good reason. I have seen them put in mental institutions and sometimes they are killed because of their actions. Harmon's death is just the latest in a long series of bad ends for them. This time, no one died but Harmon. If there is a lesson from his death, it is that looking back on his life we can see the harm people like him can do and then not look the other way for fear of the consequences.

As Harmon's ex-wife put it,

"No(t) only do I not have sympathy but I am glad he is gone. My children were terrified of him and even his own son wanted him dead. He stalked us for years and was seen outside our home several times not only by us but by neighbors as well. One less source of pain for my children, now they are left with only the mental torture he inflicted on them. They didn't call him dad or even father. They know him as the bad man."

My sympathies go out to her, and all the others who have been hurt by his life, and now by his death.

http://www.coloradospringsninjutsu.com/Blog/Entries/2014/9/7_Standing_up_to_a_martial_Arts_Cyber_Bully.html