quincy
Senior Member
No. It's not real. It is illegal to impersonate another person with the intent to cause that person harm, and harm can be demonstrated through more than monetary losses.
You have some avenues to explore in both Pennsylvania and New York but it is best if you explore your options with an attorney well-versed in online crimes. From what you have written in your posts, there could be a supportable civil action available to you (defamation) and there could be supportable criminal actions filed against the creator of the website (identity theft, for one). Your first challenge for any legal action will be unmasking the anonymous fool who took to the internet to make your life miserable.
Because cases built on online publications are fact-specific, complicated, time-consuming and costly, there is little a forum can do to help you handle this on your own. You need to look at how much injury you have suffered as a result of the website and determine how much time, energy and money you want to invest in pursuing the character who created it.
To start you off, here is a link to New York's penal law §190.25 on criminal impersonation, which has been used in cases similar to yours where the reputational injury suffered has been significant enough to warrant legal action: http://codes.lp.findlaw.com/nycode/PEN/THREE/K/190/190.25
And here is a link to Pennsylvania's harassment law, 18 Pa Cons Stat §2709: http://law.onecle.com/pennsylvania/crimes-and-offenses/00.027.009.000.html
I am short on time right now but I can post back with some of the (many) cases that show not only how difficult it can be to stop online harassers/defamers/impersonators - but that also show it can be done given the right set of facts.
edit to add one case for now, People v. Golb, which covers a couple of the areas you will want your attorney to address:
https://www.nycourts.gov/ctapps/Decisions/2014/May14/72opn14-Decision.pdf
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