Chappaqua Poison
This is a long-form reported article of the summary of evidence and personal narrative provided on to the journalism project known as Chappaqua Poison. All of the below statements have been fact-checked and are backed by testimonies, court documents, personal documents, text messages, depositions, witnesses, and sworn statements. The reporting within this website was done by a group of journalists who have elected to use titles-only as a result of a recent threat of harm sent by one of the subjects of this reporting. Although the journalists names are titles-only, their credentials and bios can be viewed here.
Chappaqua Poison
Former tech CEO Stephen Russell describes enduring a multi-year manipulation campaign at the hands of those in closest proximity to him in an effort to discredit him, drug him, use him, abuse him, extort him, systematically strip him of parental rights, and destroy him. At its core, it's a story of casual evilness, the sicknesses that engulf the powerful, and vast and spanning corruption. It’s an account whose details are the stuff of nightmares.
Steve, a patent-holding, Stanford-educated tech expert, is more self-aware and self-deprecating than most of his Silicon Valley brethren. He talks in organized monologues, with synapses firing on all pistons, a reclaimed clarity he doesn’t seem to take for granted. He is overflowing with details of his experience and with remarkable precision. He mentions traumatic events he has weathered with matter-of-fact delivery, occasionally nervously laughing at how absurdly terrible it all sounds.
After coming from a humble working class upbringing, and then going on to graduate from Stanford, he eventually found himself being an advisor to companies like Uber and Ring, and was living that glamorous entrepreneur life with all of its trappings - money, high profile deals, the attention of women, and the thrill of innovating. He’s not that guy anymore, he says, and he doesn’t identify as a tech CEO. Most of his identity now is about what he lost. He is out-of-body, reliving what happened to him over the course of the last few years, analyzing it from a bird’s eye view, and waxing philosophical with total captivation about the capacity for destruction from the influential, corrupt upper class circles in which he once orbited. He says he needs answers, and wants to understand the full story of what happened to him.
But more than anything, he just wants to see his 4-year-old daughter.
He describes his life one that was turned upside down at the hands of a vengeful ex, a compromised security team, a corrupt family court system, a billionaire family with connections, and states that all of this was further complicated by a series of drug and chemical attacks he endured that were meant to disorient and eventually kill him. After finding his ex's Google search history about a famous historical woman who got away with poisoning her lover, he was certain this was the goal.
The Beginning
At a Hudson River boat party in 2015, Steve was living the dream. Surrounded by friends, clinking glasses, and meeting beautiful women.
One of those women was named Tara.
Tara comes from a wealthy family in Chappaqua, NY and their home is on a gated lot with a private road, just down the way from the Clintons. Her billionaire father sold junk bonds with Michael Milken (the “junk bond king” who was charged with insider trading in the 1980s and convicted of fraud though recently granted clemency by Trump) and later sold mortgage-backed securities before the housing market collapse of 2008.
Steve describes Tara’s family as every stereotype of white dysfunctional wealth that one can conjure. Tara’s sister details her experience with her family on her blog and discusses abuse she says she endured. In fact, it seems that Tara herself wanted to emancipate from them long ago after numerous calls to CPS. The blog contains accounts of physical and psychological abuse, and direct mention of what she says is Tara’s diagnosis: Borderline Personality Disorder. According to the blog, it was not uncommon in their family household to be drugged without one’s knowledge, Lithium being a drug of choice, and allegedly utilized as a means of control - a running theme for those in the family.
As Steve and Tara’s relationship progresses, he describes that over time Tara’s mental illness begins to encroach, with outbursts and episodes that would last for hours. Steve, ever the fixer, talks about ways to manage the episodes. He and others describe her moods as swinging wildly, and that she would hurl insults at him with ease, calling him fat and ugly. He talks about trying to maintain calm for the both of them. In one particularly telling text message that he references where she is ranting at him, he simply replies with an offer for food. She puts in her order for a quinoa salad to him, as if the previous conversation had never transpired. The rollercoaster of Tara’s emotional waves was something the Steve says he became accustomed to - a challenge, something that needed the bugs worked out, a problem to be delicately handled, an algorithm of responses and reactions, and most of all, something he felt sympathy for; He knew where she came from and he felt bad for her. He recounts how Tara’s behavior only escalated. No amount of troubleshooting sufficed. A sickness that couldn’t be course-corrected on his own.
In 2016, Steve begins to feel sick, too.
In March 2017, he sees a toxicity screen that shows elevated levels of Lithium in his system.
Looming Threats
Steve grew up in Michigan. His mother Linda was a nurse and his father Jim sold roof coatings. They went bankrupt sending Steve and his brother Jonathan to Stanford, like many self-sacrificing, salt-of-the-earth parents do. He and his siblings are all highly educated and have done well for themselves, becoming every working class parent’s dream. Modest Midwesterners producing doctors and tech business savants. Not too shabby.
Steve isn’t just any ol’ dime-a-dozen Stanford tech guy. He graduated at the top of his class and his skillset is noteworthy. His abilities sparked the interest of governments and government agencies alike, including the CIA. His expertise in computer vision, biometrics, video processing, and artificial intelligence were highly sought after. He is the inventor and owner of over a dozen patents, including facial recognition technology and his former company, 3VR, provided facial recognition devices and software to government agencies throughout the United States, Russia, and Ukraine.
After traveling to Kiev, Ukraine in 2016 with Ring CEO Jamie Siminoff to set up R&D offices for Ring Labs - with a specific focus on home security - Steve returns to the US to find that his own home has been broken into. The power was off at the main breaker and the hinges appeared to have been removed in an intentional act. A specific and pointed attack on someone whose job it is to make homes safer through technology.
During this time, he is diagnosed with Lyme disease and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. Steve says that Tara is almost suspiciously sure that he is not afflicted with these ailments. Regardless, she agrees to fly to San Francisco to be with Steve and take care of him. However, he says, the entire time she talks down to him and says that his ailment isn’t real, openly bullying him about his symptoms.
Months go by, and Steve gets the feeling he is being followed. He hires a private investigator who confirms that he is, in fact, being followed. This would start years worth of looking over his shoulder, and odd interactions with strangers with what he says are calculated attempts to entrap him. He talks about how his professional life and personal life are a barrage of attacks.
He says at this time, he suspects he is being drugged by Tara.
He also suspects that he is being followed by Russian spies. And according to his security team, he’s spot on.
Looming threats are all around. His volatile ex and his international security problem come face to face. He's in a state of constantly wondering if a threat is real, imminent, fabricated by his ex, exaggerated by his security team, or if it's all just one big threat tied together; A woven web with proverbial spiders crawling all over it.
After a large blow out with Tara where she hurls a wine bottle at his head and then goes on a $15,000 shopping spree, he breaks up with her, exhausted from her constant onslaught. Tara would contact him again afterwards to let him know she was pregnant, though given her past record, Steve was skeptical. He flies her to San Francisco to be there for her first ultrasound. There, on the screen. There she is. Steve is really going to be a dad.
When Steve talks about his daughter, he slows down his normal speaking pace. He can rattle off information about being tormented and stalked with a calm directness reserved for most military men. The occasional can-you-believe-this-shit laugh to put the listener at ease and give them a moment to breathe as he drops a cacophony of shocking details. But the mention of his daughter, who he no longer has access to, is enough to change the mood significantly.
He quickly shifts back to Tara, whose pregnancy brings on a whole new slew of disturbing behavior - with information he obtains from her sister, as she is back in New York again. During her pregnancy, he says, she poses for selfies holding guns and Steve says he finds out that eventually she commits an unthinkable act during a particularly intense episode. He pauses, and then says that at this time she attempts to overdose on the drug Seroquel, a strong antipsychotic medication.
This information lingers in the air. Steve waits a moment to drop the next bombshell of information.
He is also told by his security team that there is a device in his apartment, hardware of Russian origin. He will eventually be told that his life is in danger. He’s being targeted.
Security
He speaks about his paranoia during this time in hindsight, discussing how it operated within two distinct dynamics. Chemically-induced paranoia from being drugged - the not knowing what’s real and what’s a hallucination, what’s heightened and what’s grounded. And then there were the unmistakable this-stranger-is-following-me paranoid moments which proved to be all too real for him. All of that coupled with emotional gaslighting from family members with probably well-meaning but ultimately harmful downplaying of his situation, and then there was what he describes as Tara’s antagonistic and dishonest agenda, which now, he says, involves a desire to get him committed to an institution...it was a lot to navigate.
His decision to ramp up his security detail, for him, was an obvious one.
Security
After a technical and safety breach at his company, a team is hired who provides Steve with round-the-clock security personnel. His suspicions and paranoia are confirmed when they find an odd looking device in an electrical outlet in his home. When the device is sent off for analysis he is told it's of Russian origin and likely being used to spy on him. Given that he worked in high profile settings in Russia and Ukraine, he's not totally surprised. He hires a security advisor to oversee this new threat.
He talks about how his security team grows as he takes on a purported expert in Countering Violent Extremists (CVE), and another consultant who specializes in protection and securities - a man whose resume is a wav file containing a music video-style display of skill, though despite its machismo grandeur, shows he is a disturbingly efficient marksman. These two men tell Steve he is in great danger. The surveillance they believed he was experiencing was connected to the sensitive nature of the computer vision and facial recognition technology being implemented across several international projects during his time at InQtel (a CIA-backed venture fund), the Moscow Subway Project, and his recent work with Ring setting up offices in Ukraine. The very specific and detailed nature of the information his consultants provided, including confidential details relating to his prior business dealings, made their claims seem highly credible. They tell him he is on a list created by the Russian government and that he is a person of interest. Steve talks about being unsure of what’s real and what’s not, but when a security team confirms your worst fears, it’s hard not to believe them.
During all of this, Steve’s daughter was about to be born. He wasn’t taking any chances. He contracts the men out for a sizable sum to protect them. They tell him, in addition to his international security concerns, that the people around him are also a threat. That he should be cautious of them.
The People Around Him
In January of 2018, Steve flies to New York. Tara is about to give birth. It’s four days of appointments and a hospital stay with very little sleep in an uncomfortable chair. It’s finally time. A successful C-section and then there she is. Evelyn is born and it’s love at first sight. He has “Stevie and Evie” all lined up for his daddy/daughter nickname with her. Steve asks Tara to move back to San Francisco. He needs Evie in his life and wants to provide a safe home for her, even if the two of them can’t always make things work. She agrees. Tara is on board. She moves to San Francisco with Evie. He’s exhausted and elated.
His deliriousness and exhaustion catches up to him that day, but in a way that doesn’t feel entirely natural. He describes a hallucinogenic effect that takes hold of him. He’s trying to maintain composure, thinking that he must be more tired than he originally thought - sleeping sitting up in a chair for days on end will do that. But still, something is off. Something is really wrong here.
Tara would later admit that she drugged Steve.
Trust
After his daughter is born, Steve sets up her up with a financial trust. It becomes increasingly clear that there is a desire on Tara’s part to get this trust (due to her text messages about finances) and that her behavior moving forward would reflect that goal, including taking documents from him, and rifling through financial statements. Steve talks about how he is completely, and at the time blissfully, unaware, and is just happy to raise Evie and spend as much time together with her as possible.
But his happiness is interrupted with each new report from his security detail.
Steve’s consultants continue to press him to fund more protection for himself, including hiring additional investigators, feeding him doses of paranoia as they try to upsell him on their services, moving in closer and closer, pressuring him to make decisions, making him feel isolated, attacked, stalked by unseen forces. He describes how they even suggest handing over intellectual property to them for “safe keeping,” urging him to stay at an estate in Hawaii owned by one of the consultants, to escape an impending threat to him. They are relentless.
Drug dose, paranoia dose, drug dose, paranoia dose. The pattern repeats. Poison from all sides coming at him.
Steve talks about bizarre interactions with cab drivers and strangers who approach him, lean in, and try to prompt him to say incriminating things. A constant whirlwind of people around him attempting to gain access, to disrupt his life, and to tear him down. He had so many questions at the time, and still does. Who exactly was doing all of this? Was it the same people, or different people with different motives? When did he go from living a normal life to this tornado of events?
He mentions other instances as he pieces details together. Feeling sick and finding chemicals in the vents of his home, the screws on all the outlets being turned in different directions after a precautionary tactic of putting them in one direction was in place, hidden cameras and threats to release private footage of him at home. He rattles off these examples that spanned the duration of the last few years, skipping around in time a bit to give a sense of the total impact. The more he talks about it, the more details that crop up from his memory.
But it doesn’t just live in his memory. He has categorized documents and booklets full of information, timelines, obtained text messages of plans against him, court documents, photos, witness statements, and more. He puts the same drive and energy he used for years in business to his personal life. It helps him to organize it all, looking at it in well-designed layouts, informational systems to help him make sense of it all.
Throughout his account, he expresses that it’s not just nefarious forces at work. It’s the everyday failures of the average person that assist in his downward spiral. His list of the people who could have helped mitigate much of his suffering is long, and yet he doesn’t harbor the kind of ill will a person in his position would deserve to - he’s mostly intrigued by it all. How some people will let a person wither, or be whittled down. How nonchalantly a police officer or judge or lawyer would shrug their duties in the long run. But he’ll get to that later, he promises. For now, there is one person who steps up, changes everything, and ultimately creates a tipping point.
Evie’s nanny Abby blows the whistle - in a sworn testimony she states that she sees Tara drugging Steve.
Justice
After all of this, Steve finds himself fighting for justice on several fronts - a federal RICO case against dangerous members of his former security team, a custody case within a family court physically located in proximity to the influential and wealthy Walsh family, and a battery case against Tara in San Francisco.
Years go by and there is no justice on any front. No justice, until now.
In March of 2022, a San Francisco jury finds Tara guilty in civil court of battery for her premeditated drugging and abuse of Steve. They award nearly $400,000 dollars in punitive damages. A legal expert close to the case has weighed in to confirm that an award of justice this size makes up about 2% of cases of this nature. In layman's terms, the crime has to be really, really bad to get this level of justice.
Note: As of this reporting, Tara Walsh has still not been arrested by police for this crime despite having admitted to it and been found guilty in civil court.
But that still leaves two fronts where justice seems out of reach. He has expressed that his primary concern is, and always has been, his daughter, her safety, and their relationship building during these formative years.
Custody was award to Tara outside of a formal custody trial and Steve has been cutoff from his daughter entirely. Visitations are sabotaged by the Walsh family using intimidation tactics, moving goalposts, cancellations, and angry outburst at visitation handoffs causing one court-appointed visitation supervisor to submit a written assessment of the visitation that she described as the "fright of her life" when Walsh family members appeared to be hiding in vehicle with what looked like baseball bats, awaiting their arrival. Steve and the supervisor left without incident on their part. Tara filed a restraining order against Steve as a result of the visit that her family sabotaged, in what points to an orchestrated bit of drama.
Note: The supervisor was fired from the case by the court shortly after submitting the report against the Walsh family.
Judges have repeatedly recused themselves from the case. [HYPERLINK TBD] A court-appointed expert fled the state after being exposed as a fraud. [HYPERLINK TBD] A court liaison cited their personal relationship with the judge as a reason for being able to defy orders. [HYPERLINK TBD] And after years of waiting, there has been no formal custody trial. Just an award of custody, in a back room deal, without Steve or his lawyer present.
An award of full custody to his convicted abuser. And no visitations for Steve.
Steve doesn't get to see his daughter anymore and no on can tell him why. He can't even visit her now. The last time he saw her was on an all-day Zoom call months ago. She gripped the iPad in her small hands, beaming with a big smile into the screen, transfixed. Even after all this time, she still knows who he is and one thing out of all the chaos is clear: Evie loves Stevie.
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