PHOENIX (3TV/CBS 5) – A family law attorney in Phoenix wants to set the record straight after she says someone wrote an email, making it look like it’s from her to her staff.
The email starts by saying, “Dear staff, if you asked why I support white supremicy (sic), this is why: I pay all of you from the money that comes in from white clients. If we had a bunch of blacks and mexican (sic) clients, you all would be out of a job, because they have no money/bad credit and cannot pay for our high-end legal services. Please consider this before labeling me a racist.”
Someone posted the fake email on social media and her law firm is now getting calls from around the country.
“When I first read the email and even when the police first read the email, they initially realized that even the first line is spelled wrong. The font is different, there’s not a date on the email. It is clear that someone took an email I had written and cut out the content and added this to it,” explained Angela Hallier. “Looking at this email as someone who sends the emails with my name on it, I can tell the font is wrong. I can tell you that I spell correctly, and I can also tell you that never would I write any such thing to my employees nor would I think such a thing.”
Hallier said she was first alerted to the document two weeks ago.
“My office got a call from a business located around Seventh Avenue and Camelback advising us they have found what appeared to be an email from me to my staff outside their front door when they opened,” Hallier said. “At first, I laughed because anyone that knows me knows it’s so obviously wasn’t me and I just thought that anyone that would read it would know it’s obviously a fake. But we continue to get additional calls throughout the day from people finding this document up and down the streets.”
Hallier said she reported the findings to Phoenix Police two weeks ago, but everything started to calm down. However, this week, someone posted it on social media. She says her law firm is now getting calls from around the country.
“People from around the country began to call me racist, leave horrible messages on my voicemail, talk to the receptionist at the front and tell her that it was true. They’re telling me I should move out of the state, calling me very nasty names and generally assuming I had written something I had never written,” Hallier said. “I mean, it is a little scary to think that one fake email caused this.”
“You feel helpless because you realize a lie on social media takes on a life of itself and you can almost do nothing to stop that,” Angela Hallier said.
Hallier said she’s reported the social media posts to the respective websites but they don’t meet their qualifications to be removed.
“You feel helpless because you realize a lie on social media takes on a life of itself and you can almost do nothing to stop that,” Hallier said. “My hope is that maybe in the future before people react to something they see on social media and take it to be true, that they take a minute to think about whether this looks true, whether it sounds true, and even reach out to the purported writer and ask.”
Hallier believes the person who wrote the email is a former client who she had to part ways with.
“In writing this they wanted to get the biggest bang they could for their buck and paint me as someone who I am not, nor is my firm,” said Hallier.
Phoenix Police say they are actively investigating this case.