As the smear campaign was done behind the scenes on the Daily Paintworks site, out of courtesy we telephoned the Marines to make them aware of our situation and to warn them that we were about to publish a blog in which Daily Paintworks would feature. We explained that we would have to mention Mike Miller (Mike Hoeptner) and told them he is a member of an organised crime network and once he has anyone’s email and IP address he can infiltrate their computers and cause havoc in their lives, which could be detrimental to their business.
After the phone call there was further correspondence by email in which I asked David Marine to pass all our information over to the FBI and in his reply he said, “As horrible as this situation is, it is between you, your ex-wife, your grandson and the other people”, which did nothing to help our situation. Despite their denial, we do not believe that the Marines had no knowledge about what had gone on on their Daily Paintworks site. Why else would 5 years and 4 months have been deleted from the middle of their Facebook Business Page postings, when it corresponded to the time Amanda was a member of Daily Paintworks? We do not believe, as David Marine said, that this is Facebook behaviour. In addition David Marine has not kept emails between all the artists, via the ’email the artist’ button, from before 2018 and says that the Dropbox file of 5 years and 4 months has no comments “for some reason”. To us this smacks of destroying evidence that would have proved a smear campaign had taken place on Daily Paintworks.
David and Carol Marine as owners of Daily Paintworks have not taken any responsibility for the fact that this happened on their site, nor have they offered any help in taking this to law enforcement. Surely, when artists pay $12.50 per month they are entitled to some protection that if a smear campaign has occurred the Marines would investigate and take the necessary legal action against the person/persons involved.
As I told David Marine that if Amanda had never joined Daily Paintworks this would never have happened.
We want our life back to normal and our situation can be resolved very quickly when someone proves, with the bank details we received from Mike Miller, that it is Mike Hoeptner’s account (which we are convinced it is), and for him to explain why he needed our home address here in Spain.
Ron Bilson