<story><title>Accused of cheating, marathon runner Frank Meza&apos;s life fell apart (2019)</title><url>https://www.lamag.com/citythinkblog/frank-meza-marathon/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>Reubend</author><text>It&amp;#x27;s terrible that people were harassing this man, and that those communities formed a mob mentality against him. But I don&amp;#x27;t feel particularly sorry for him; he cheated, denied it, threatened to sue people, and then eventually took his own life after his reputation was ruined.&lt;p&gt;Perhaps if he had stopped competing after the first blog post exposing him, things would have de-escalated. Instead, he doubled down on his lies, and made things worse for himself.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>probably_wrong</author><text>I do feel sorry for him, and I think you are being too forgiving to the trolls here.&lt;p&gt;This was not a mere &amp;quot;ruined reputation&amp;quot;, but rather a persistent, coordinated mobbing assault big enough that not even a professional PR firm could do anything.&lt;p&gt;Did he cheat? Likely yes. Did he deserve being banned from marathons? Sounds like it. But did he deserve &amp;quot;the pressure, attention, emailing, even trolling&amp;quot; that he got? No, he did not.&lt;p&gt;If I were in his position, I would have also tried to sue.</text></comment>
<story><title>Accused of cheating, marathon runner Frank Meza&apos;s life fell apart (2019)</title><url>https://www.lamag.com/citythinkblog/frank-meza-marathon/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>Reubend</author><text>It&amp;#x27;s terrible that people were harassing this man, and that those communities formed a mob mentality against him. But I don&amp;#x27;t feel particularly sorry for him; he cheated, denied it, threatened to sue people, and then eventually took his own life after his reputation was ruined.&lt;p&gt;Perhaps if he had stopped competing after the first blog post exposing him, things would have de-escalated. Instead, he doubled down on his lies, and made things worse for himself.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>bo1024</author><text>By all accounts (including a friend of mine) he was a wonderful person, mentor, coach, etc. back in the day. It sounds like maybe he developed some mental issues that eventually led to both the cheating and suicide.</text></comment>