I have had a month. 

A month to breathe, to be angry, to reflect, to figure out “what now.” 

It’s been a month since Daniel’s sentencing and it’s strange how in one hour, my life became something entirely different.

Daniel was given a pass. 

There is no other way to describe it. 

He was given a plea agreement that allowed the felony to be dropped to a misdemeanor. He must do one year of probation and complete a psychosexual evaluation and pay $1000 fine that goes to Cobb County. 

Saying he got a “slap on the wrist” would be an understatement. 

Two years ago, this month, that man shattered any trust I had in another human being. I was dragged through a ridiculous divorce where he nitpicked and harassed me about books, broken window screens and wooden bowls. His defense attorney had the nerve to call my employer and question my employment at the law firm where I worked.

By the time I got to say my piece in court, I was exhausted.

My piece in court…that was a day.

First off, that coward didn’t even have the nerve to show up and face me in person, he chose to appear via Zoom. Which makes sense, since he is most comfortable watching things online.

After the ADA and his attorney spent their introductions kissing each other’s asses about the other’s professionalism while brokering this monstrosity of a plea agreement, I was called up to the stand to give my victim impact statement.

I got up to the stand, turned my chair towards the judge and said this….

In March of 2020, my life, as I knew, was destroyed.

After finding the videos and photos, I realized that for FOUR YEARS Daniel managed to hide ALL OF IT from me. There is no way this kind of behavior just comes up out of nowhere. Our marriage wasn’t perfect, but to do this to me, his wife, knowing the history of sexual abuse that I suffered in my past. All while putting on this “nice guy” farce. That level of deception tells me that Daniel is a deviant of the worst kind, a deviant that hides in plain sight.

Well, “Nice guys” don’t illegally film their wives naked.

When confronted, “nice guys” don’t say they did nothing wrong, while simultaneously unplugging their computer and running out of the house with it.

“Nice guys” don’t flip through months of surveillance footage and pick out their favorite screenshots.

“Nice guys” don’t violate the woman he claims to love unconditionally.

Daniel is anything but a nice guy.

Daniel is a predator.

Daniel destroyed my safe space, our marriage and my ability to trust.

After I received my TPO and the warrant was issued, Daniel came back in the middle of the night and parked in a neighborhood cul-de-sac, so the dogs wouldn’t alert me to his presence, not exactly the actions of an innocent man.

At Daniel’s insistence, our attorneys spent hours arguing about him kicking me out of the house during a pandemic, ignoring that our separation agreement said otherwise, and even though Daniel had plenty of family to stay with. I only had two months to find somewhere to live, without an income, during a pandemic, all while trying to pay for a divorce that Daniel caused. I was completely cut off from everyone. I no longer had friends because Daniel sent out a message to everyone we knew on Facebook, saying I was unstable and to stay away from me. Daniel gaslighted me and them to hide his criminal and predatory actions. He made certain I was isolated, broke and alone. Of course, everyone did what he said because they couldn’t believe a “nice guy” like him would ever do that to me. No one could believe I would divorce such a “nice guy.”

After I did find a place to live, while I was packing, I found one of Daniel’s cameras hidden in a USB charging block, plugged in next to the bed. I had been charging my phone on it all along.

This also meant that for TWO MONTHS after Daniel was arrested, he was still watching me. I felt violated all over again.

Daniel’s lack of accountability even reared its predatory head when he had the nerve to try and extort my dropping the charges for $6,000 worth of bills in our divorce and then further held up mediation because he insisted that I give him our wedding photos, like he didn’t already have enough photos and videos.

For weeks, I was forced to sit in front of multiple officers as they clicked through the photos I had brought them, begging someone to take me seriously. Cobb Police treated me like I was insane. I kept hearing, “well you are his wife,” “it is HIS house,” or no one would help me because the pandemic had just begun. I was humiliated in court when trying to get a TPO by the judge who said he had a hard time believing I didn’t know what was going on in my own home. I have to sit here today, in front of Daniel’s attorney and the ADA, knowing they’ve seen the violating photos and videos Daniel took. It was because of what he has done, I suffer this humiliation.

After the officers came and arrested him, he didn’t apologize, Daniel didn’t say anything in his defense, he just said, It’s his house.

Since the day I walked into the police station with the first USB drive, I keep feeling victimized by not only Daniel, but also by the system that is supposed to be on my side; the TPO Judge, the arresting officer and the Police Department.

In the middle of a pandemic, with no job, no family around, no friends, and no money, I was forced to move out of my home by the very TPO that I filed to keep myself safe.

I took photos of where I found the USB block and brought the camera to the Detective, but other than that, nothing happened, still no search warrant was issued, no one came to search the rest of the house, nothing. Daniel was able to keep his computer, external hard drives and everything else he took out of the house the day I confronted him AND he got to keep whatever footage he captured of me for the two months after he had been arrested, all while I was supposed to be in my own home, alone and safe.

For the rest of my life, I have to live with the knowledge that Daniel will always have possession of the video footage he took of me and the photos he created from that footage. I have to live knowing Daniel gets off on sorting through months of footage and cherry picking his favorite shots. I have to live not knowing how long this went on, not knowing what he does with the footage, who he shares it with, or where it is disseminated to. I will spend the rest of my life back loading photos into Google, hoping that I don’t find myself on one of those creepy websites Daniel frequented and paid memberships too.

Anyone who has stayed in our home has to live never knowing if Daniel filmed them.

While I appreciate the multiple apologies I have received from ADA Norton about how my case was handled, I hope that if anything, Daniel is the first and last person to get away with violating someone like this, wife or not. His sentence today doesn’t mean I can move forward, this just means I no longer have to be victimized by the system’s failures.

Because the police made a mess of this case from the beginning, Daniel is being given an absolute gift today with this plea agreement. A gift he does not deserve.

After today, Daniel gets to live in the home I worked so hard on, the home my father loaned me the down payment for. Daniel gets to move forward with hundreds of hours of footage of me. I have to spend the rest of my life knowing what he did, what he has and that he got away with it and that he will probably do it again to someone else, because there is no way behavior like this began out of nowhere, but in 12 months, after Daniel completes his probation, his record will be erased and, for Daniel, it will be like it never happened.

That is not the case for me, because Daniel is not sorry, he is just sorry he got caught.

It was my intention, to take a deep breath, say my piece and then sit back in the galley. That was not what happened. 

After I was done speaking, Daniel’s attorney decided to take the opportunity to pick apart my victim impact statement. Daniel already had the plea agreement so why his miserable, cut-rate attorney decided to tear me apart is unfathomable. He had the nerve to talk about his professionalism and how he had only looked at a few of my pictures. 

OOOKKKKAY! 

He said that I was wrong, and Daniel hadn’t done the things I spoke about in my statement.

The judge asked Daniel where his computer was, and he said he had kept it. She ordered him to turn it in by 5:00 that day, to which he told her, “It’s very bulky.” 

That didn’t go over well.

She asked him if he knew why he had gotten arrested in the driveway, he told her “I’m not an attorney.” 

That’s when it got interesting. 

Daniel has this thing where every time he opens his mouth, it’s only to switch feet. 

The judge did not take his comments well. She told him she wasn’t going to tolerate his “cat and mouse games.”

She took away his ability to be sentenced under Georgia’s First Offender Law. So, no matter how well he does on probation, his record can never be expunged. She also said that no matter how “bulky” his computer, he would turn it in that day.

Then his attorney put his hackles up, insisting that the computer be destroyed immediately, that the District Attorney could not search it after sentencing. Because goodness knows what other secrets they would find.

As the judge did what she could with the terrible plea agreement that lay on her bench. She made it clear that she thought he was getting away with too much and she told him so.

I continued to sit on the stand, in front of court, while the judge laid into Daniel and then his attorney did the unthinkable, he threw out the laziest piece of lawyering possible, he said, “let’s not forget Ms. Copland did almost 18 years in prison for murder.”

You gross, terrible, flat rate, cheap suit asshole!

No wonder Daniel hired him, because they think exactly alike.

When the judge apologized to me and then told me I could step down, my blood was boiling. 

The ADA, my victim advocate and my mom told me I did great, but I didn’t feel great.

Because of what I was a part of when I was 17 years old, Daniel’s attorney thinks that that makes what Daniel did okay, that my rights, my dignity and my safety do not matter. He pretty much said my past should give his pervert client a pass, that’s what Daniel thought as well and that’s bullshit!

Daniel never thought I would find out about what he did to me and he certainly never thought I would call the police on him.

During the majority of our marriage Daniel gaslighted me. 

He repeatedly told me that he loved me, in spite of my past. 

He told me that no one would love me, but him. 

Only he would ever want me.

He told me he didn’t care how fucked up I was, he was the only one that understood me.

I believed every word he said, and then my spine finished growing.

My past does not mean I do not deserve happiness or success, it just means I have to work harder than most.

Maybe I will never find someone to truly love me and that’s okay. 

Daniel never loved me, he owned me, I was an object to him, a trophy, that is why he victimized me in that way.

I don’t need someone to be complete, to be successful or to be happy.

Since our divorce I bought a house on my own, found a career, and I’ve almost paid off all the debt from our marriage, since that’s what I got in the divorce.

Daniel can go fuck himself.

I can do everything on my own and I do have true love, I have dogs.