Exposed Journalist Teri Buhl
Teri Buhl went to jail. Buhl, a journalist from New Canaan, Connecticut, and founder of @BuhlReports, was sentenced to 30 days in prison for catfishing a teenage girl and harassing her — something she originally denied, but later admitted.
“I’m really numb,” Buhl said, days before her arrest. “I just want to go and get it over with.” Buhl was found guilty in Connecticut of creating a fake Facebook profile of a high school girl. According to court papers, the false profile created by Buhl featured posts about school gossip and personal letters exposing sexual information about an underage girl, the daughter of Buhl’s then boyfriend.
This all started in 2009, when Buhl was living in New Canaan, a town on Connecticut’s so-called Gold Coast — one of the wealthiest areas of the country. About an hour from New York City, New Canaan is home to wealthy commuters, Wall Street types, and old-school American families. Perfectly manicured lawns flank multimillion dollar colonial homes. CNNMoney ranked New Canaan one of the nation’s richest zip codes in 2014, with a median income of over $500,000.
Buhl was there working as a journalist, previously reporting for the New York Post and New York magazine, reporting mainly on Wall Street and hedge funds. In New Canaan she was unemployed, struggling to find work, but she hit the jackpot in her personal life, dating the chief financial officer of a brokerage house; he was recently divorced, with a teenage daughter.
Buhl disclosed that he was supporting her and paying her rent while she wasn’t working. And then she reportedly got a great tip on a story: A group of alleged local sources contacted her and told her that several high-profile families in the area were throwing drinking parties for their teenage kids.
A typ
“Parents were hosting these underage drinking parties where teens were getting date-raped and alcohol poisoning,” Buhl said the sources told her. “And the New Canaan cops were covering it up. [Parents] would hire them as off-duty guards and just let it go.”
According to Buhl, the group that contacted her comprised a handful of parents who “were sick of it,” she said. “Sick of the parties, sick of the cops doing nothing.”
Believing she had meaty, investigative piece she could sell to a magazine, Buhl stated she kept in touch with the sources. She put the word out at the gym where she worked out, casually talking to people she met in town — to see if anyone could give her more details about the alleged parties.
With those efforts, Buhl reportedly got a bite.
Buhl received an email from a high school girl who allegedly had information — a firsthand account of what went on inside those New Canaan million dollar homes. “[She] said, ‘I have a letter about Avery Underwood’s party,’” Buhl disclosed from her alleged source. It was one of the exact parties the activists had told her about.
According to Buhl, the two met in person, and the source gave Buhl a personal letter written by a party attendee that read like a diary entry.
“The letter — it was insane,” said Buhl. “It was great evidence of these parties happening at Avery Underwood’s house.” The underaged author of the letter detailed her experience at the party, describing “drinking a water bottle full of vodka, taking a guy upstairs, and giving him a blowjob,” Buhl said.
As Buhl read the letter, which was written on stationery that looked familiar to her, she started putting the pieces together: The author of the letter might be her boyfriend’s 17-year-old daughter.
“I went back and compared the handwriting to a birthday card she’d given me, and they matched,” she reported.
Admittedly not close with her boyfriend’s daughter, Buhl had been on vacation once together, but otherwise, Buhl says she made sure he had time alone with his kids.
Not sure what to do or hold the information in confidence, Buhl shared the letter with the activists who contacted her, part of a quid pro quo they’d agreed on from the outset.
“I had agreed with them to share information,” she says. “So, when I was approached with the letter about Avery Underwood’s party, I did share it with them. I’ve never told anyone that.” Until now, releasing the names of her journalistic sources.
Buhl says that setting up fake Facebook pages through which they pretended to be and impersonate a teenager is a method about asking about parties.
“They wanted someone to admit that Underwood’s mother had absolutely supplied the alcohol,” says Buhl, so that Underwood’s mother could be arrested.
According to court papers, on June 23, 2010, Buhl’s boyfriend’s daughter — referred to as “M” because she was underage at the time — got a call from a friend who said he saw a fake Facebook profile, under the name “Tasha Moore,” that made reference to M.
M immediately logged on to Facebook and used her friend’s account — someone Tasha Moore, ultimately identified as Buhl posing in the social media forum, had friended — to see the post. Tasha’s post read:
[M] … gets so drunk at parties that boys know she is an easy hook up. In April at [Avery’s] house party she gave [Kyle] a blow job and then threw up… [M] told her friends she thought giving the best BJ would help make [Kyle] her boyfriend. You wonder why some [high school] girls never learn how to behave around boys.
According to court papers, the post also contained a photograph of M and photographs of M’s handwritten letter, which described her drinking and performing oral sex on a boy.
As this was happening, Buhl began to worry about M. She felt an obligation to tell her boyfriend what his daughter was doing.
“I was trying to figure out how to tell him,” she says. “I’ve got to find a way to tell him his daughter is having major problems,” and ultimately decided to do it anonymously.
Buhl decided to make an anonymous package and Buhl would send it to him via overnight mail. The next day, M’s father received the anonymous package containing the letter and photocopied pages of his daughter’s journal.
The letter said:
I am a casual friend of your daughter [M] … [Kyle] the guy [M] hooked up with, has been bragging to my boyfriend and other senior guys about what [M] did with him that night. He’s not really a nice guy. She just gets so drunk so fast sometimes I don’t know if she even remembers hooking up with guys … She only showed a few of us these letters when she got back from vacation. Please don’t tell her one of her friends wrote you but my mom said it is best of you read them.
According to court papers, M’s father later told authorities he was “shocked” and “outraged” when he received the letter.
The next day, he and Buhl went out to dinner. In court, he would later testify that Buhl did not have a reaction to the news about the letter.
Two days later, Buhl admitted to him that she sent the anonymous mailing; then she confessed to police.
She and her boyfriend broke up. “It was sad,” she says. “I really loved him. I would have married him.”
Police traced the Facebook page to several IP addresses, one of which was Buhl’s, according to court papers. Buhl was also charged with harassment for sending the anonymous package.
When asked if she would ever do it again, “I probably would not have mailed him the letter,” she said. “I shouldn’t have mailed him the letter. Although, then I get conflicted.” She pauses for a moment. “I should have dropped out of the story,” she continues. “But it was important, and I thought it was an important issue.”
Buhl was charged with harassment, breach of the peace, and found guilty. Which came with a jail sentence.
“I’m ready,” she said. “I’m ready to go.”
Buhl continues to operate independently as a self-proclaimed “smashmouth investigative” journalist and finance reporter at www.teribuhl.com.
Original article by Cole Kadzin, Jul 28, 2016.
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