Grief as the entry point

Zack's cause was Isaac Kappy, the actor who died in May 2019 and became the object of intense speculation. Zack believed Kappy had been killed and wanted justice. Schoenberger arrived in that vacuum — calls, DMs, private emails — as a fellow truth-seeker who had the answers. What he actually supplied was a target list and a script. It is chapter 12's honor trap with the loyalty supplied by grief instead of a shared cause.

The script: ready-to-paste attacks

Directives, formatted as copy to publish under Zack's name:

"Wyatt" is the @WyattEarpp_ account of chapter 16 — a pro-Schoenberger ally, here being given cover on request. Material Zack posted in this period accused this author of being a government asset and a harasser. Those were not his words.

Control ran on emotional pressure: when Zack hinted at independence in March 2020, Schoenberger answered that a betrayal would drive him to harm himself — then, once Zack apologized, "I am your friend.. Please just remember that I am on your side." Escalate, extract the apology, reassure, resume.

"Cicada I got paid for"

When Zack broke, he wrote to Gary Caplan, attorney for Gabe Hoffman — one of the targets he had been aimed at. He had not been paid to smear Hoffman; that was done "for justice for isaac kappy." Then:

"… Not money. Isaac Benjamin Kappy. Cicada I got paid for."

A first-person admission of paid Cicada-branded work inside Schoenberger's operation. Schoenberger's reply to the defection is also in the archive:

Zack also left a handwritten note, taped where it would be found, stating that he was not a danger to himself — a dead man's switch naming the people he feared. Caplan asked that Zack's mother be included in the conversation going forward.

“$63.77 from Michael Levine,” note: “Cicada”

The receipt. Documented A phone screenshot of a payment-app receipt dated Nov 25, 2019, 2:33 PM EST reads “You’ve received $63.77 from Michael Levine,” with the note “Cicada” and a contact address that begins “MLMusic” (blurred here). The person who received it is Zack. He sent me the screenshot himself. It falls inside the window this chapter covers, late 2019, when Schoenberger was feeding him material to publish.

The day before. Documented On Nov 24, 2019 an email from “Parody Lives” reached Zack. That is Schoenberger’s name for his tstger13 address: searching my mailbox for it returns his emails to me from February 2020 to February 2021 and the one forwarded to me on Sep 8, 2020. The screenshot shows the name and not the address. It opens with words for him to post as himself: “Hi everyone, please paypal if you can so I can keep my channel growing ! Thank you ~~” The rest is accusations written for him to publish, including against this author, and I do not reproduce them. The payment above arrives the next day.

What Zack told me. Claimed Zack told me the payment was to keep him supporting Thomas in his harassment campaign. That is my account of what he said; I do not have it in his own words in this file, so it stays Claimed. It fits what he wrote to counsel in the entry above: “Cicada I got paid for.” That line says he was paid, and not by whom. The receipt puts a name on the payer’s side, the same Michael Levine this file documents as a named “Owner” of the Cicada 3301 property alongside Thomas (chapter 9). He has repeated the same account in later interviews. I am not linking them: a link would name him, and I promised he would stay anonymous.

August 26, 2020. Documented At 10:48 AM, Gary Caplan, counsel for Gabe Hoffman, wrote to Zack that his client would drop the damages claim in exchange for “complete PayPal records from October 2019 onward, and related communications” and “a full record of the timing, number, and amounts of donations from individuals financially supporting his defamation of my client.” At 11:06 AM Zack answered with the message quoted in the entry above, “Cicada I got paid for.” The Nov 25 payment falls inside the period counsel asked about.

Already on the public record. Documented The payment was in public view long before this file. The receipt appeared in a YouTube video dated Dec 17, 2019, at 0:52, and an article on the Samizdat site (Estéban Trujillo de Gutiérrez, “Cicada Files: Z 3301 et al”) reproduces it, reads the sender as “MLMusic,” and gives the amount as $66, or $63.77 after fees. In a court case, Hoffman v. Schoenberger (Palm Beach County, No. 50-2019-CA-013860), the plaintiff’s motion for injunctive relief filed Jul 17, 2020 alleges at paragraph 7 that Schoenberger “encouraged [Zack] to set up a PayPal account, and arranged for [Zack] to be paid for creating defamatory YouTube videos about HOFFMAN, by his so-called ‘best friend’ Michael Levine, a notable Hollywood composer.” That is an allegation in a filing, not a finding, and I cite it as what was alleged. In 2024 Zack also said so himself, in a public petition in his own name: “I received payments via PayPal after uploading videos to my YouTube channel,” naming Levine among those who paid him, and that what he had been posting was “exactly what Thomas Schoenberger wanted me to continue doing.” These sources name him in full. I link them so the claims can be checked; he put his own name on the petition, and the rest of this file still calls him “Zack.”

Claimed The Samizdat article also transcribes Thomas on Nov 8, 2019 (his video “The Road to Redemption with Esteban,” 4:50): “Z did receive a lot of money from Beth. And, you know, I’ve tried to take care of Z, too. So has Michael (Levine).” The video was deleted when its channel was struck. I have not seen it; the author says he hosts a copy. It is Thomas speaking, so it is Claimed.

What this does not say. It does not show what Levine knew about what Zack was publishing, and it is one payment with a one-word note. I have not seen the payment platform’s own record from either account, and a screenshot can be edited, so the amount and the date rest on the image alone. Levine’s own explanation is not in my file. The platform’s transaction record, from either side, would settle the facts of the payment in one line.

"R2"

The evidence archive carries a cover note signed R2 — AR-TU, this author: "ZACK IS SOMEONE THAT UNTIL RECENTLY AND WITH A LOT OF EFFORT WE MANAGED TO FREE HIM FROM THOMAS… LIKE MANY OF THOMAS'S VICTIMS A VULNERABLE PERSON, AND ONE THAT 3 WEEKS AGO WAS ON THOMAS SIDE." It asks that his identity be protected and his consent obtained before anything is shared.

The person on Zack's target list was the person who helped cut the strings. That is not offered as virtue. It is offered because it is the fastest way to see the difference between a weapon and the hand holding it — and because every attack Zack published on this author has a documented author who was not Zack.