How #metoo Accountability Spectacles Enable Frauds: The Saga of The Punk Rock Therapist, Anti-Flag, Kristina Sarhadi, Rolling Stone, and the Enough. Podcast. Part 1
A Little Color Commentary
The first draft of my piece on The Punk Rock Therapist was nearly 10000 words, a journal entry compiling everything I found over the 3 weeks I spent investigating Sarhadi, and all of my reactions to it. I sent it to a friend for editing and they came back with the cold hard truth, that it’s too long and nobody is going to read it. So I decided to do some literary surgery to separate the combined research and polemic into two different pieces, the investigative portion I released in early April, and now this more opinion driven article. I think this is for the best, the investigative piece needed to be as fact driven as possible, and now I can return to the commentary waters I am more comfortable in. The first piece was intended so that the audience can draw their own conclusions, these are my thoughts on what I found.
And as this is an explicitly opinion piece, I don’t have to worry as much about certain litigious parties, and can state my feelings a bit more freely thanks to the wonderful protections granted to me by this great country’s divinely inspired constitution, in particular its first and most glorious amendment. Such statements like Kristina Sarhadi is a fraud snake-oil salesman using the #metoo movement to scam donations and prop herself up as a professional she clearly isn’t and could never hack it as. Aided by a podcast whose hosts are so stupid I’m shocked they can talk an entire podcast length without swallowing their own tongues. An overly credulous media and ambulance chasing activist lawyers who would’ve happily prosecuted the witch trials if they were convinced the cause of Salem was adequately feminist. Or other opinions, like my belief that The Punk Rock Therapist is a fake charity that exists solely for Sarhadi to swindle donors and con the public into believing she’s a mental health professional and not a glorified new age witch doctor.
For those just now joining us, here’s the broad strokes from my first piece to get you up to speed, though I’d still recommend reading the original piece first. In July of 2023 Kristina Sarhadi, a self described therapist and social worker, appeared on the enough. podcast and recounted a story of being sexually assaulted by a then unnamed frontman of a political punk band, which would later be revealed to be Justin Sane (real name Justin Geever) of Anti-Flag. This set off a social media firestorm consistent with most high profile alt music #metoo situations that resulted in Anti-Flag immediately breaking up and Geever disappearing nearly instantaneously. A little over a month later in September of 2023 Rolling Stone released an expose with an additional 12 allegations against Geever dating back to the 90s. In conjunction with the Rolling Stone article, Sarhadi launched “The Punk Rock Therapist” a charity aiming to raise money for alleged victims of Geever so that they could be provided free therapy that would be administrated by Sarhadi. In November of 2023 Sarhadi announced that she would be suing both Geever and the other members of Anti-Flag in the final days of eligibility of New York’s Adult Survivors Act. In February of 2024 Sarhadi joined with other alleged survivors of musician misconduct in “Sound Off”, a group that demands the adoption new professional regulations and standards within the music industry in its’ dealings with sexual misconduct. In March of 2024 Sarhadi released a statement alleging that Geever had “fled the country”, that the remaining members of Anti-Flag had retained a high profile attorney to contest her lawsuit, and that The Punk Rock Therapist charity had provided $65000 worth of free therapy in the 6 months since its foundation. After extensive research that was laid out in my first piece, I found that Kristina Sarhadi was not currently, nor had ever been a licensed therapist or social worker as she has continually claimed, and that The Punk Rock Therapist was not an accredited charity, contrary to Sarhadi’s claims of tax exempt status. Further I found no evidence of Sarhadi graduating with a Masters of Social Work from USC as she also claimed. When I asked Sarhadi for proof of her having ever been a licensed therapist or social worker (which she is legally required to provide if she has those titles), she refused to provide it, as well as refusing to provide any proof to disprove the other discrepancies I found.
Readers of the first piece will remember that when I reached out for comment Sarhadi vowed that “real journalists, investigators, documentarians, and politicians will pay this no mind and will quickly discredit you, as they have the information you believe doesn’t exist.” and yet here I stand, a month later, and not a single piece of evidence supporting any of Sarhadi’s claims has emerged. In fact, there hasn’t been a peep from any of the involved parties, outside of Sarhadi privating her Kingston Reiki account where I was able to find the list of her actual “qualifications”. You would think that these incredibly empathetic, principled individuals who care so much about public accountability, transparency and victims would be scrambling over themselves to show that they weren’t funneling money and alleged rape victims to a sham charity helmed by a deeply unqualified individual pretending to be a professional she has never been. You’d think in the interest of the public and the integrity of their mission all these fine people they would quickly mobilize to clear up any misinformation or hold themselves as accountable as they demand of everyone else. I know they’ve seen my piece, they’ve locked instagram accounts, blocked me, been sent multiple emails in an attempt to get comment, but not a word.
The facts of the case of course remain the same. It is a FACT that Kristina Sarhadi is not, nor has ever been a licensed Social Worker or Therapist, as she has continually claimed. It is a FACT she is not qualified to treat patients in that capacity. It is a FACT that The Punk Rock Therapist Organization is not a IRS recognized charity despite Sarhadi’s claims. It’s a FACT that Sarhadi’s claims of being a Therapist and Social Worker, the first thing out of her mouth on the podcast where she took her allegations public, is a lie. And these lies have been continually enabled by the music press who failed to do even the most basic due diligence and have been more than happy to ignore the blatant factual problems and ethical violations at the center of Sarhadi’s project while she preys on the public.
Conflict Minded
What initially drew my curiosity and pulled me back into the story was the press release Sarhadi put out in March. I was struck by how much the press release came off as just PR trying to influence public opinion rather than really anything of legal substance. In the press release Sarhadi alleges that Geever is “fleeing the country” which seemed like very odd framing, while it is a catchy headline. Geever is named as a defendant in a CIVIL suit, not a criminal one. Geever is not charged with anything, he is not out on parole, there’s absolutely no law that states you can’t travel, or move, even across countries, while being sued. Geever technically doesn’t even have to appear in court, doing so could result in him losing the lawsuit by default, but painting Geever as some kind of fugitive of justice when he categorically isn’t seems odd if not disingenuous and manipulative. This of course is uncritically parroted by the “journalists” who are covering the story.
Sarhadi then proceeds to admonish the remaining members of Anti-Flag, who she is also suing, for retaining a lawyer to contest her claims, which is something that they are also 1000% allowed to do. The fact that Geever and Anti-Flag have chosen to exercise their rights to defend themselves instead of simply lying down and allowing Sarhadi total uncontested control seems to have drawn the ire of Sarhadi and her team. Sarhadi’s legal team is composed of some of the most high powered, prestigious lawyers currently practicing. Ann Olivarius is one of the most renowned attorneys on the planet and practices law on an international scale. In 2022 she was appointed to the King’s Counsel by King Charles (Olivarius, being the principled defender of women and the abused she is happily accepted this honor from the same royal family that has avoided any responsibility for their ties to Jeffrey Epstein). She’s the originator of the term “date rape”, a revelation that has had me praying to Camille Paglia for protection like a patron saint. Her partner Jef Mcallister was a White House Correspondent and Bureau Chief at Time Magazine back when that meant something and is notable for his connections to Tony Blair. These are Yale and Oxford grads, the most elite of the elite, on first name basis with heads of state. For all her little shots at Justin and Anti-Flag for having “wealthy families” it would appear either Sarhadi has far deeper pockets than she’s letting on or she’s getting representation from some of the top lawyers in the world at no cost. This is a case that involves the most elite, 1% of lawyers available, and that’s great, everyone is entitled to the best legal counsel possible, but it’s far from the scrappy “survivor vs the system” narrative Sarhadi is peddling. Sarhadi seems to believe that she is the only one entitled to prestigious legal counsel.
The rest of the statement devolves into more or less Sarhadi and her various lawyers and supporters continually insisting that what they are doing is more “punk” than Anti-Flag, who are sell-outs. All of this was far more reminiscent of a punknews.org forum post regarding whatever label Against Me! had signed to in 2005 than a serious discussion about a court case involving incredibly serious allegations of felony sexual assault. At that point I was just planning on writing a piece about this strange disdain for due process even within civil court, and delve a bit more into the Adult Survivors Act.
A quick note about the Adult Survivors Act; it’s bullshit, it’s legalized extortion and makes a farce of the justice system. For those not in the know, the Adult Survivors Act was a bill passed in New York that for 1 year removed the statute of limitations for Civil sex crime lawsuits, because like all legislation that is good for society, it has a Purge style countdown until it’s off the books forever. This was hailed as some kind of victory for Survivors trying to hold predators accountable, but if the State of New York was really passionate about that, why didn’t they remove the statute of limitations for criminal investigation instead of just Civil liability? Because it’s an obvious due process nightmare and clear violation of the 6th amendment, so instead they kicked it to the civil courts so they could look like they’re doing something. It was under this law that Donald Trump was successfully sued by E. Jean Carrol, the P. Diddy scandal kicked off in earnest, it also ensnared Axl Rose, Marilyn Manson, New York’s Mayor Eric Adams, and it is under this law that Sarhadi brought her suit against Justin Geever and Anti-Flag. Some 97% of Civil Suits are settled before ever going to court, you’re trying to litigate something that happened decades prior, there’s a significantly lower standard of evidence in Civil trials, if there’s even slight possibility these allegations could have happened you’re more than likely going to end up paying out. An easy payday for the alleged victims and their pro bono lawyers under the guise of “accountability”.
Dollar Story
That press release is what ultimately set me down the path that lead to the revelations about Sarhadi’s qualifications. In particular the claim about $65000 dollars worth of therapy being provided. That was a pretty significant sum in my opinion, especially over 6 months and it wasn’t really clear to me if they had raised that amount of money, or if that was simply an evaluation made on the amount of care they had provided.
From my vantage point there also seemed something a bit incestuous about raising funds for care that ultimately just funnels back into your business practice, a weird round about way of paying yourself. Not sure the legality of it, but it felt strange. Like if I started a charity called The Avant Garde Jazz Ditch Digger raising funds to dig ditches for free in low income neighborhoods and those donations and the business they generated went entirely to my landscaping company.
The donations page of The Punk Rock Therapist website where I eventually ended up offers many claims. Among them it solicits donations so that it can fund free “therapy” (therapy being the specific word used, not the more nebulous “counseling”) provided to other alleged victims of Geever and other music industry predators, this “therapy” is being provided by Sarhadi. Littered among the strange obviously AI generated art images of four fingered mohawked children with their gums disconnected from their jaws, fusing together like The Casualties van broke down in Silent Hill are various reasons why you should donate (the website strangely claims that all of this art was done Runaways founder Kari Krome). One of those reasons The Punk Rock Therapist touts in exchange for your donations to their organization is to “Clear your conscience”. While a lot of charity is based in a desire to right wrongs, rarely is this level of emotional manipulation so brazen. Yes, if you ever bought a t-shirt from Ant-Flag and feel bad about it, The Punk Rock Therapist is here to help you wipe the slate clean for a small price in a strange modern recreation of the Medieval Catholic indulgence system. The Catholic Indulgence System offered absolution of sins in exchange for donations to the Church until the Catholics realized it was absurdly immoral in…1567. Crucially however, Catholic Indulgences would allow you entrance into eternal paradise. But it does appear clicking the donate button on The Punk Rock Therapists’ website will offer you the sweet relief of no longer having to look at whatever deformed mutant is depicted in the accompanying “art”.
Across multiple pages The Punk Rock Therapist touted that donations to the organization were tax exempt, but because I’m familiar with that world I noticed something was missing: confirmation of the necessary 501 (3)(C) status for donations to be tax deductible. I looked all over the website, I couldn’t find it, that information that is omnipresent on any reputable charities’ website was missing. It was all very odd. I reached out to Sarhadi who assured me they were a charity and offered to give me the EIN and connect me with their tax attorney. I tried to take her up on that offer, but strangely it never materialized. However, right after I contacted Sarhadi for comment, an EIN number did start to appear on various Punk Rock Therapist related pages.
The EIN that started popping up on The Punk Rock Therapist related accounts only after I started investigating is simply that, an EIN, any person can request one. While an EIN is a required part of any business or nonprofit’s registration with a government, it is not the only thing required. You put this EIN into the IRS website, nothing comes up. I called the IRS, no charity exists connected to that number. It’s a smokescreen, a ploy to obscure the fact that The Punk Rock Therapist is not a charitable organization of any kind. So again, if you’re considering donating, I wouldn’t hold my breath on the tax exempt status.
The fine folks over at The Manson Cases reached out to me after I published my piece with a bit more information about how nonprofits work in New York. Based on personal experience they informed me that to become a charity in New York you have to file paperwork to become Non Profit Corporation with the state in order to start the process. It may shock you to find this out, but there is also no record of The Punk Rock Therapist as a Non Profit Corporation with the state of New York, nor is there a record in California where Co-Founder Samantha Maloney lives.
So once I noticed the discrepancies between the claims of tax exemption I became curious. What else could Sarhadi be lying about? Turns out, a whole lot.
Unlicensed Guidance Counselor
I became interested in what exactly Kristina Sarhadi does. Across different interviews, websites, and social media profiles Sarhadi claimed a lot of very different titles; Social Worker, Therapist, Holistic Psycotherapist, Trauma Informed Counselor, Health Coach, Reiki Master among others. Sarhadi claims to be a Therapist and a Social Worker, it’s literally the first thing out of her mouth on the Enough. podcast episode that she used to bring her allegations public. The first thing Sarhadi tells the public is an outright lie, Sarhadi is not a Therapist or Social Worker, nor has she ever been one. New York (and every other state for that matter) keep meticulous records of the licensed mental health professionals practicing in their state. Therapists and Social workers are required to be registered with those state agencies in order to practice. Kristina Sarhadi does not appear in the database of New York licensed mental health professionals, nor does she appear in the databases of any other state. Without these certifications she is not a Social Worker definitionally and not a Therapist in any meaningful sense of the word.
As I went into a little bit in my first piece, to the general public, despite the broad amount of experiential difference between them, these terms can be a bit interchangeable and just fall under the broader umbrella of “mental health professional”, which is somewhat understandable given the broad range of professionals that work in the field. But based on my experience, those professionals themselves are VERY particular with their qualifications. If you don’t believe me call a Psychiatrist a Psychologist or a Nurse a Scribe and watch what happens. People are very proud of their titles, they work hard for them, and generally are very specific, which is why it was so odd to me how inconsistent Sarhadi was with what her actual qualifications are. On top of that, it almost felt like too much, the sheer amount of qualifications she claimed to have started to feel like resume stuffing more than anything, somebody trying to appear more qualified than they are by sheer volume of titles. Therapist AND Social Worker AND Holistic Psychotherapist AND Reiki Master AND Health Coach AND Domestic Violence Counselor AND Crime Victims Legal Advocate, all of these things are specific careers that require specific schooling. While I suppose it’s theoretically possible to do all these things, most people pick a lane given the cost of schooling and time commitments.
Speaking of schooling, I never got an answer on Sarhadi’s mysteriously disappearing MSW, she claimed she graduated from USC in 2015 with a Masters in Social Work on her linkedin as well as on social media profiles. However when I looked at the graduation programs from 2015 Sarhadi’s name didn’t come up, in fact, it doesn’t come up in the USC graduation program records from 2013 to 2021. For reference a MSW is the bare minimum degree to as a prerequisite to getting a Social Work license in many states including New York. When I asked Sarhadi about this, she didn’t offer any answers, however the claim of being a USC graduate disappeared from her linkedin within hours of me sending my email, before her linkedin account was deleted permanently by the end of the day, and the MSW language started disappearing from her other online profiles. Now, I’m not someone who believes that running is an indicator of guilt, but Sarhadi sure does.
The Punk Rock Therapist is named as one of several other organizations demanding sweeping policy changes within the Music industry under the banner of keeping people safe and enforcing accountability. While these policies may right and necessary does anyone at least find it strange that Sarhadi is demanding accountability protocols within an industry while entirely ignoring the accountability protocols within the industry she claims to work in? When asked for the certifications that Sarhadi is legally required to provide as the mental healthcare worker she claims to be she responded “We are not in the business of proving anything to anyone, period.” Why is Sarhadi above the rules she demands of others?
Sarhadi falsely claims to be a Social Worker and Therapist because she knows it gives her an heir of legitimacy. Therapists and other mental health professionals are prized for their supposed insight, especially in our current culture of therapy worship. It is an attempt gives her words more weight, her allegations of an unverifiable assault nearly 15 years past no longer come from some crystal healer, but a mental health professional. Sure, maybe some unknown on the internet would lie, but not a “therapist” right?
Sarhadi now sees multiple patients under the guise of being a “therapist”, facilitated and funded by her “charity”, she’s said as much. Sarhadi now effectively has a “Therapy Practice”, something that she would otherwise have been unable to establish given her total lack of credentials, but seems to be skirting around using legal loopholes, language games, and the fact that nobody really cares to check. In real life, Sarhadi works as part of a Reiki practice, she doesn’t, and can’t, offer the kind of therapy she’s advertising. The patients she’s seeing are allegedly victims of violent sex crimes, obviously there’s the question of whether or not Sarhadi is qualified to be giving these people care (she’s not). Additionally there’s a question of whether or not her patients are aware of Sarhadi’s actual qualifications or if they understandably believe they are receiving care from someone who claims to be a therapist and is in the very name of the charity that’s facilitating the care.
In a recent interview with the Pittsburgh City Paper Sarhadi and her team revealed that an additional 60 women claim to have been victimized by Geever. These victims of course not coming forward to the police, or any other investigatory body that could independently verify their claims, but to Sarhadi herself, many of them through The Punk Rock Therapist, which sure is awfully convenient. This claim of an additional 60 women is of course repeated as fact by news outlets who do not seem interested in verifying these additional 60 people’s stories, if these people exist or even question how any individual could commit at least 60 sexual assaults without leaving a single piece of physical evidence. It’s just treated as fact now, we’ve gone from one victim, to 12, to 60, and nobody outside of Sarhadi and her team can see the work that got them to that number. Instead of doing journalism, investigating and informing the public, news outlets appear happy to simply run PR for law firms.
There are overtones of CII and the McMartin trial in this. Specifically how alleged victims of the McMartin ritual abuse were funneled through Kee MacFarlane’s program, a social worker who already had a preset belief that the children had been ritually abused and was found to have coached the statements from the children that were used as key evidence during that moral panic. Alleged victims of Geever are now funneled to Sarhadi through The Punk Rock Therapist charity, who has neither the authority or the capability to verify any of these claims. Even if she did, she’s made it clear she has no interest in discernment, all that is required to be a “victim” of Geever is to say you’re a victim. Sarhadi enters all of these situations having already reached a conclusion. These alleged victims are then added to Sarhadi’s growing list of victims for her lawsuit as well as PR campaigns, and it appears at least some of these victims are placed under Sarhadi’s care for “treatment” that Sarhadi is not qualified to give, and again, has already reached a conclusion on. The Punk Rock Therapist solicits donations off of all of this. Sarhadi has effectively been allowed to become both lead prosecutor and forensic psychologist for her own case. There are very specific guidelines by which alleged victims can be interviewed (many of them coming as a result of the McMartin disaster) to ensure investigational integrity, avoid leading the witness or coaching certain statements. Sarhadi is a glorified yoga instructor, are we to believe she’s upholding these kinds of standards? There’s no evidence she even has a masters degree, let alone the rigorous training of a forensic psychologist. If one of these victims actually has a case against Geever, having been placed under the “care” of a life coach pretending to be a therapist who already has a clearly stated agenda would almost certainly upend the case for the very real possibility of witness manipulation.
These are grave ethical concerns. Sarhadi is seeing clients that claim to be victims of the same person she claims to be victimized by. This obviously effects her ability to provide care with the level objectively necessary and is a clear conflict of interest. Even if you want to play the “well nobody is objective” card, which is entirely meaningless in questions of conflict of interest, using your “therapy” charity practice to source alleged victims to be used in your civil suit is an astonishingly gross ethical violation. Sarhadi would of course know all of this if she was actually a fucking therapist.
Strong References
Perhaps the most difficult part of writing the first piece was not biting through my tongue once I found out what Sarhadi actually is and trying to maintain a level of objectivity and report all this alternative medicine stuff. It’s bullshit, the perfect intersection of mysticism and “wellness” that has rotted the core of psychoanalysis for years now. If you wanna believe that shoving crystals up your ass heals your generational trauma, or that scientology can exorcise the alien demons living in your soul, more power to you, it’s a free country, but those of us who live in reality shouldn’t be forced to entertain your delusions. She’s apparently a “health coach”, something that literally anyone can claim. Seriously, you can wake up tomorrow morning and tell people you’re a health coach, there’s nothing stopping you. She’s also a Reiki Master, which also isn’t a real thing. Sarhadi is a quack, a spirit healer who is either a swindler or true believer, but either way no society should take seriously on any matter of importance.
Before this I had no idea what Reiki was, I’d heard the term thrown around, but never by anyone I would pay any mind. If I gained anything from my investigation I at least learned about a new dimension of bullshit these woo woo morons are peddling.
Reiki therapy is based on an Eastern belief that vital energy flows through your body. The idea is that a person who specializes in reiki treatment, referred to as a reiki master, uses gentle touch – or places their hands just above your body – to help guide this energy in a way that leads to balance and healing.
While there’s no research to show that the energy field involved in reiki exists, you may find it relaxing.
Okay, turns out I am actually familiar with Reiki, and you may be familiar with Reiki if you’ve seen the classic 1984 film The Karate Kid wherein Mr. Miyagi uses the invisible power of Reiki to heal Daniel-san’s injured leg just in time for Daniel to win the big martial arts tournament. If you or someone you love are suffering from some kind of psychotic break, while I am not a doctor (though I am a health coach), I would recommend a state certified professional as opposed to a Certified Holistic Health Counselor. But the upshot is that if you’re looking for someone who believes the Kamehameha is real and they can use it to heal your male pattern baldness, Sarhadi is your girl. Though interestingly, Sarhadi’s name also doesn’t appear in any of the online databases of Reiki masters I can find, but it’s not as if any of those databases are comprehensive and it’s entirely possible Raiden was sidetracked while filing her certification due to a particularly difficult encounter with Sub-Zero.
For the record, becoming a Licensed Family Therapist in New York requires completion of minimum Masters Level coursework, 1,500 hours of field experience, and passing a board approved exam among other requirements. If you want to get a certificate in Holistic Therapy like Sarhadi, you can do so here after completing this $100 online course, though a thrifty and enterprising individual could buy the unlimited course pass for 12.99 a month and also pick up your license in crystal healing. This is the level of rigor we’re dealing with.
Sarhadi could very well be a victim of a serial predator, but that does not give her carte blanche to act in any way she sees fit, anymore than losing a family member to cancer gives you the right to start calling yourself an Oncologist and start giving people chemo drugs you made in your bathtub. In my exchanges with Sarhadi she asked me “…do you not believe that women deserve mental health support and that the current system is not accessible to the majority of Americans?” This is a fairly common refrain from the Institute for Integrative Nutrition crowd, that because their “holistic” approach operates outside of the licensing and certifications of the medical community, they are able to bypass the prohibitive cost of traditional healthcare, which is true, but they are also able to bypass the standards and safeguards. The belief that what they were providing was better than what doctors could at a cheaper price was also an animating pitch of the snake oil salesman. I absolutely do believe that anyone, regardless of gender, deserves mental health support and that our current system fails to provide that. However, I don’t believe the way to do this is by lowering the competency requirements of care providers so that our most vulnerable are left in the hands of witch-doctors.
If Sarhadi is so confident in this kind of medicine why constantly obscure it? Why not call yourself “The Punk Rock Reiki” if you believe so strongly in it? Why constantly invoke Therapists and Social Workers that you’ve never been? It’s because it’s all bullshit, and Sarhadi knows it.
In the past decade or so as allegations of sexual misconduct morphed into moral panic internet spectacles that disappear people overnight it has been demanded that the public “believe women” or “believe survivors” on the very basis of their accusations alone, not on a preponderance of evidence or probability, but simply because the accusation exists. To ask for evidence, to show any hesitance, let alone skepticism towards the people who demand the right to unilaterally banish whoever they’ve decided to target is treated as nearly as grave a sin as the alleged assault itself. We’ve destroyed due process and countless lives in order to appease what is effectively a religious belief that people who identify themselves as “victims” would never lie. Of course liars were going to take advantage of it, and the solution of these cultists was simply never investigate it, if you don’t look too closely, you’ll never be wrong. Sarhadi knew that #metoo and the Punk community would provide her a great deal of cover, and she took full advantage of it, at times it’s hard for me to fault her for accurately reading the room. What’s funny is that Sarhadi isn’t even that good of a liar, she’s just smart enough to know that the people around her don’t care about the truth.
I actually listened to what Sarhadi said, that is my crime in all this. I listened and had the audacity to double check if the person I’m supposed to believe unconditionally was actually telling the truth. If alleged victims are always telling the truth, why is it such a sin to simply ask for proof? As with any cult, the ultimate transgression is skepticism.
The refrain to skepticism towards these kinds of public spectacles from the most ardent supporters of #metoo is “what would an accuser have to gain by lying, nobody would do it just for attention?” Outside of the naivety and the fact that in the age of social media attention may arguably be the most valuable commodity, the acquisition of a massive platform to launch a “charity”, allegedly thousands of dollars in donations that will go directly into your pocket, a steady stable of clients and being publicly legitimized and allowed to practice as a mental health professional for which you have no qualifications is surely an incentive.
The only person to blame for this situation is Sarhadi. She could’ve made her accusation without embellishing her credentials or launching a “charity” and the outcome would’ve likely been exactly the same, like it has with countless other unverified #metoo accusations. The same goes for her lawsuit, there was absolutely no prerequisite that she tell people she was a mental health professional she was not certified as in order to file under the Adult Survivors act. For whatever reason Sarhadi chose to intimately tie her accusations against Geever and Anti-Flag to a gambit of creating a career for herself as a therapist, using the charity and goodwill she garnered from the public to fund this endeavor. Hell she could’ve started The Punk Rock Therapist and funneled these victims to actual clinically certified professionals instead of making them her spirit healing lab rats and lawsuit ammunition. I believe that Sarhadi saw an opportunity for personal gain and believes the public that supports her is too stupid or gullible to check the language games she is playing, and to her credit, for the most part, they’ve continually shown that they are exactly as vapid as Sarhadi believes.
Just because Sarhadi is not telling the truth about her qualifications or The Punk Rock Therapist of course does not mean she isn’t telling the truth about her assault. But it does muddy the waters that she used those accusations to present herself as something she isn’t and build a reputation as a professional she has never had the qualifications to claim. The alleged event Sarhadi has spoken extensively about was 14 years ago, nearly a decade and a half in the past and far beyond any ability to collect any conclusive physical evidence short of a time machine or the revelation of a long missing hidden camera. While it seems all but certain Anti-Flag and their legacy have been permanently ended by the court of public opinion, in the absence of conclusive evidence, a great deal of this civil case will come down to which side is more credible. Considering the fact that nearly every thing Sarhadi has claimed publicly that can be verified has turned out to be false, I don’t know how you can take anything she says just on her word. And then of course comes the question if the response to Sarhadi’s allegations, which was the near instantaneous and total destruction of the lives, reputations, and careers of Anti-Flag was justified, let alone proportionate, given the inconsistencies that exist. I’d argue that nuclear option is never justified, but at the very least the social death penalty shouldn’t be enacted when a shadow of a doubt exists, and it surely exists here.
For Sarhadi’s supporters who believe it is irrelevant I ask you if Justin or Anti-Flag were found to be presenting themselves as mental health professionals and providing care to patients with dubious credentials and had been raising money directly off that self presentation for a fake charity, would you feel that was irrelevant to the question of their credibility? Of course not. It is only because Sarhadi claims to be a victim that everyone is willing to look the other way.
At the center of Kristina Sarhadi’s accusations has been one of hypocrisy and deception, that Justin and Anti-Flag misrepresented who they were to gain trust and access to vulnerable people who took them at their word. That they were enabled by the people around who looked the other way while knowing that they were not nearly as safe as they claimed to be or were negligent in their due diligence. And that may still be true, but it appears that Sarhadi is far more personally familiar with those kinds of tactics than she lets on.
Sarhadi of course did not act alone, this scam was fully enabled every step of the way by journalists and activists. And we’ll get to them in Part 2.
You can find me on instagram @jacktorrancefakeshisdeath and on twitter @jtorrancesghost
Please direct any inquiries to jacktorrancewrites@proton.me
People like this are cancer.
Theres nothing worse than a woman scorned.
I think it's total BS! These girls are not stupid. They knew what they were doing. I am not saying it's right, but seriously? I think they had sex with a rock star who didn't want to date them after he got what he wanted and it upset them. Back in the day, there was a term for these type of girls...uhmmmm.....Groupie's!
I am a woman who has been raped and let me just say this; it's a horrible thing. The rapist did not send me letters afterwards. He did not reach out me. He did not take me to his concerts. We did not chat afterwards, etc. He did what he did and that was it. It was humiliating. The last thing I ever wanted to do is put it out to the public. When I did make the decision to report it, it was a little to late and the DA did not feel there's enough evidence. I am OK with that. I did report it. That's what was important to me. Not to go after him in Civil Court for a sum of money! Why would anyone want to rehash their rape in front of the court and state that a million dollars will make it all better or whatever amont her demand is for.
This young lady is going after his money and to hurt him. He didn't do what she wanted, which pretty sure was date him and be in the spotlight. She certainly does appear to enjoy being center of the media circus.
This is not the first nor last rocker who will be dragged through this type of crap. I know of one other case where a band member was placed in jail for a few months, accused of raping a girl. As time would tell, it was found she had cheated on her boyfriend with the Rockstar and instead of admitted what she did and take responsibility for being a whore, it was easier for her to accuse the guy of rape. He lost months of his life because he had sex with some girl. Charges were dropped but what about what she did? That was wrong.
I know this will piss some ppl off. But save your breath. I am so happy I lived during the real punk days and not this rehashed punk generation of kids trying to grasp a state of mind they could never understand! Holistic Punk Therapist..
Get the f%$&k out of here with that shit!