By Arturo T. (@Tafoyovsky)
"I am NOT a danger to myself or to anyone else. God bless."
That line, handwritten in careful block letters on a sheet of spiral notebook paper, was not a journal entry. It was a dead man's switch. The person who wrote it wanted it on record — taped to a wall where it would be found — that if something happened to them, it wasn't by their own hand.
The author of that note was a young man we will call Zack. Between late 2019 and August 2020, Thomas Schoenberger turned him into a weapon, aimed him at specific targets, pulled the trigger via dictated social media posts and YouTube videos, and then — when Zack began to see through the manipulation — threatened him with prison, financial ruin, and worse.
This article documents that process from start to finish, using Zack's own emails, text messages, and the paper trail he left behind when he finally broke free. Every quoted statement comes from primary evidence preserved in a private archive since September 2020.
I. The Recruitment
Zack was what online manipulation researchers call an "ideal proxy": emotionally invested in a cause, digitally active, personally vulnerable, and desperate to be part of something meaningful.
His cause was Isaac Kappy.
Kappy — an actor who had made public accusations about powerful people in Hollywood — died on May 13, 2019, under circumstances that generated intense online speculation. Zack, like many others drawn into the post-Kappy ecosystem, believed Kappy had been killed. He wanted justice. He wanted answers. And Thomas Schoenberger — who presented himself as someone who knew those answers — stepped into the vacuum.
Schoenberger befriended Zack through the channels he always uses: direct messages, phone calls, private emails. He positioned himself as a fellow truth-seeker, someone who cared about Kappy, someone who was on Zack's side. He offered attention, direction, and something Zack badly needed — a sense of purpose.
What Schoenberger actually provided was a target list and a script.
II. The Script
The most damning evidence in the Zack archive is not what Zack said publicly. It's who told him to say it.
In email after email from March through August 2020, Schoenberger — writing from an account he used under the name "Parody Lives" — sent Zack explicit instructions on what to post, where to post it, and who to attack. These were not suggestions. They were directives, formatted as ready-to-paste copy:
"Please make a tweet that says @Sharkbellykelly tried to trick me. She is a pi faced demon and Isaac Kappy was scared of her because he knew she was setting him up!"
"Respond to leppo by posting: Your show went downhill after you sold your soul to the Florida boys. Defango and Gabe are your owners, you little bitch"
"Please say Defango told me you were a zionist and with Gabe and Celeste. Not Thomas."
"You got to help Wyatt on Twitter please just say that Diane nut bag Nordstrom is crazy"
"Lee, you have been laughing at people being triggered for years. Please be honest."
The pattern is unmistakable. Schoenberger would identify a target — someone who had crossed him, someone investigating him, someone he wanted neutralized — and then compose the exact language he wanted published under someone else's name. Zack was the delivery mechanism.
One of those targets was me.
In screenshots preserved from this period, Zack — acting on Schoenberger's direction — published material accusing me of being a government asset, a harasser, and worse. At the time, I was one of the people Schoenberger most needed discredited: a former Cicada 3301 graphic lead who had defected and was collecting evidence. The attacks Zack published against me were not Zack's words. They were Schoenberger's words, routed through Zack's accounts so that Schoenberger's fingerprints would not appear on them.
This is how information warfare works at the personal level. You don't need a bot farm. You need one scared kid who trusts you.
III. The Leash
Schoenberger maintained control over Zack through the same mechanism he has used with others: emotional hostage-taking.
In a March 6, 2020 email exchange, when Zack expressed frustration and hinted at independence, Schoenberger responded:
"I trust you man.. but please never threaten to turn against me. That hurt.. I cant stand being betrayed again. I will kill myself.."
Read that again. A grown man, in the middle of a coordinated online harassment campaign spanning multiple targets across multiple platforms, told a vulnerable younger person that he would kill himself if that person stopped cooperating.
This is not friendship. This is coercive control.
And Zack's response reveals exactly how effective it was:
"I'm sorry man. I was drunk and mad... I'm freaking out scared..."
To which Schoenberger replied, closing the loop:
"Its ok man.. I am your friend.. Please just remember that I am on your side."
The cycle is textbook: escalate, threaten self-harm, extract apology, reassure, resume operations. Every abuse researcher who reads this exchange will recognize it instantly.
IV. The Paid Work
Zack was not paid to attack Gabe Hoffman. He made that clear in his August 2020 disclosure to Hoffman's legal team. But he was paid for something else — and the distinction matters.
In an email to attorney Gary Caplan, Zack wrote:
"I wasnt getting paid to smear gabe, and I was being manipulated!! ...videos I did on him were on my own time for justice for isaac kappy! Not money. Isaac Benjamin Kappy. Cicada I got paid for."
That final sentence — "Cicada I got paid for" — is a first-person admission that Schoenberger was running a funded operation. Zack was compensated for Cicada-related work. This is not the only evidence that money changed hands in Schoenberger's network, but it is among the most direct.
The smear campaign against Hoffman was bonus output — the unpaid work of a true believer who had been pointed at the wrong target by the man holding the leash.
V. The Break
In late August 2020, Zack turned. The details of what finally broke the spell are not fully documented in the archive, but the result is — because I was the one who helped break it.
The cover note attached to the evidence archive was signed "R2." That was me — AR-TU, Arturo. The same person whose name appeared on Schoenberger's target lists. The same person Zack had been directed to attack on Twitter, to call a government asset, to smear as a harasser. I was on the receiving end of the puppet show and working behind the scenes to cut the strings.
I will be honest: I did not have a manual for this. I had no training in cult extraction or victim advocacy. What I had was my own experience — years of watching Schoenberger recruit, manipulate, and discard people — and the gut understanding that Zack was not my enemy. He was a weapon being aimed at me by someone else. There is a difference, and recognizing that difference is the first step toward doing something about it.
On approximately August 26, 2020, Zack began publicly posting material critical of Schoenberger. He had figured it out — and I had helped him figure it out. When I built the evidence archive, I wrote a cover note:
"ZACK IS SOMEONE THAT UNTIL RECENTLY AND WITH A LOT OF EFFORT WE MANAGED TO FREE HIM FROM THOMAS... HE IS LIKE MANY OF THOMAS'S VICTIMS A VULNERABLE PERSON, AND ONE THAT 3 WEEKS AGO WAS ON THOMAS SIDE"
I asked that Zack's identity be protected and his consent obtained before any material was shared. I promised him anonymity. The archive was built with that understanding, and this article honors it — no last names, no identifying details beyond what is necessary to establish the documented pattern.
Schoenberger's response to Zack's defection was immediate and predictable:
"That's not good enough you publicly defamed me I did nothing to you so don't tell me God bless you after you stabbed me in the back you better delete all those emails or I will be in touch with the police in the morning and you will face wiretapping charges delete the shit now I'm serious"
"You got 20 minutes to delete every goddamn tweet that you just made and make a full apology"
"I don't take the punks trying to do bullshit when I've been straight up and supportive. I don't care what kind of drugs are on right now I don't care how drunk you are you got 20 minutes or tomorrow morning your life changes forever"
The man who had been Zack's "friend," who had asked Zack to "remember that I am on your side," was now threatening him with criminal prosecution, law enforcement contact, and years in prison — all because Zack had started telling the truth.
VI. The Confession
What Zack told Gary Caplan's legal team in August 2020 amounts to a full accounting.
He admitted that his attacks on Hoffman were based on manipulation, not evidence. He admitted that Schoenberger had directed his online activity. He expressed genuine remorse:
"I thought I was doing something honorable, though being manipulated the entire time. I will sign and never speak about him. I want nothing to do with Thomas anymore he has ruined my life. If gabe wants me to help him than I absolutely am willing to help him along. All I ever wanted to do was help isaac, and I obviously had my finger pointed at the wrong person. I hope Mr. Hoffman can forgive me for such a horrendous accusation. I am deeply remorseful, and I will cooperate with you however you deem fit."
In a separate email, Zack expressed what he feared most:
"I have people that very likely want to kill me right now for what I could expose on THEM now that I've figured them disinfo agents out... I would like to speak to gabe if I am allowed to, I have a lot that could help him out and bring this monster behind bars before he does anymore damage to any more lives. But I am scared that he wants me dead because all of the evidence I have against him. Someone has also been trying to get into my accounts since I have figured him out. He legit is psycho. Thomas. It is Scary. Very."
The attorney's response is telling: Caplan asked that Zack's mother be included in the conversation going forward. Zack was young enough, or visibly vulnerable enough, that opposing counsel felt a parental presence was appropriate.
VII. The Third-Party Witness
A separate message in the archive, written by someone who knew both Zack and Schoenberger, provides an outside perspective on what the relationship looked like to observers:
"Honestly, there's too much mistrust there. I believe he's a failed cause. I don't mean to be dismissive of his paranoia, but half the time I never know if I'm talking to an enemy or friend with him. It switches so fast. And he does that to everyone."
This person also documented that Schoenberger was sending Zack dozens of recorded phone calls — voicemails between Schoenberger and another party — without being asked. Zack was being used as a distribution node for material that could later be denied, redirected, or weaponized.
"He talks too much to too many people. He doesn't know how to keep a secret and twists things in his memory."
This is not a description of a co-conspirator. This is a description of a victim: confused, unstable, manipulated into paranoia, unable to distinguish allies from threats because the man controlling him had deliberately eroded that capacity.
VIII. The Dead Names
The handwritten note Zack left behind names three people whose deaths he connected to Schoenberger:
Samuel Fullerton. A man whose story intersects with the broader Schoenberger network. The connection is documented but complex. What matters here is that Zack believed it — and believed it enough to commit it to paper as part of a dead man's switch.
Sgt. Mike Stephen. A Stone County, Arkansas, sheriff's deputy who was shot and killed while responding to a domestic welfare call. The connection to the Schoenberger network, as documented in YouTube comments preserved in the archive, involves claims that the shooter — later also killed — had been "pushed and stalked into a corner." These claims are unverified, but they were circulating in the network Zack inhabited, and he believed them.
Isaac Kappy. The death that drew Zack into Schoenberger's orbit in the first place. The circle closed on itself: Zack's grief over Kappy made him vulnerable to the man he ultimately came to believe was responsible for Kappy's death.
This article does not assert that Schoenberger is responsible for any of these deaths. What it documents is that a person under his direct, documented control believed he was — and was frightened enough to write that belief on a piece of paper and tape it to a wall, ending with the words: "I am NOT a danger to myself or to anyone else."
That sentence was not written for the person reading it. It was written against the narrative Zack expected to be deployed if something happened to him.
IX. The Pattern
Zack's story is not unique. It is the most completely documented instance of a pattern that runs throughout the Schoenberger network.
The pipeline works like this:
Identify a vulnerable person — someone emotionally invested, socially isolated, digitally active.
Recruit them through private channels — phone calls, DMs, emails. Offer friendship, purpose, insider knowledge.
Direct their public output — literally dictate what they post, who they attack, and how they phrase it.
Control them through emotional manipulation — self-harm threats, guilt, paranoia induction, isolation from other contacts.
Fund selective work — pay for specific tasks (Cicada-related, in Zack's case) to create financial dependency and legal exposure.
Threaten them when they show signs of independence — wiretapping charges, criminal prosecution, personal destruction.
Discard them when they break free — reframe them as unstable, unreliable, drug-addled, or dangerous.
I have watched this pipeline operate for nearly a decade. I have been on both ends of it — targeted by proxies like Zack, and close enough to the operator to see the machinery from the inside. Every person who has been through it recognizes it. The names change. The targets change. The script does not.
X. Why This Matters Now
Zack's archive was built in September 2020, six years ago. The evidence has sat in a private Google Drive folder, protected by the promise I made: that Zack's identity would be safeguarded, that his consent would be sought before publication, and that his vulnerability would be respected.
This article honors those commitments. No last names. No identifying details beyond what is necessary to establish the documented pattern.
But the pattern itself demands documentation — because it is not only still operational. It has evolved.
Schoenberger is now working directly with Neal Rauhauser — a man with a documented history of lawfare, ARG-based information warfare, and the systematic targeting of individuals through legal and digital pressure campaigns. Schoenberger alone, nearly inactive and stripped of most of his network, is a fading problem. Schoenberger allied with Rauhauser and potentially funded through litigation windfalls is something else entirely. If money flows into that partnership, the pipeline documented in this article does not retire. It scales. That is not paranoia. That is pattern recognition applied forward.
Some people will read this series and call it an obsession. They are welcome to that interpretation. But I want to be clear about where I stand: my arc is finished.
I walked into this network in 2017. I spent years inside it — some of those years by choice, some of them by necessity, all of them documented. I gathered the evidence. I helped people get out. I took the hits. I wrote it down. The stories I have are mine to tell, and they are going to make one hell of a book.
I could walk away tomorrow and lose nothing. The evidence is preserved. The dossiers are built. The timeline is populated. The articles are written. Everything that needed to be on the record is on the record. What I am doing now is not chasing ghosts — it is closing files. And the reason I am closing them publicly, instead of quietly archiving them and moving on, is because the Zacks of the world deserve to know they were not crazy, they were not alone, and the person who manipulated them has a name and a method, and both are now documented.
Zack was brave enough to put his fear on paper. The least the rest of us can do is read it.
Full disclosure: The author was both a named target in the harassment campaign Zack was directed to carry out and the person who helped extract Zack from Schoenberger's control. These dual roles are documented in the primary evidence and acknowledged throughout the text.