People Who Were On the Flight Logs

Well, what a horrendous mess I’ve made…and I have only myself to blame. I’m hoping to make things better with the following novel but, who knows, maybe I’m just making it all worse.

I’m going to make this last post and then do you the favor of disappearing once and for all and deleting all associated apps. It was a colossal mistake for me to start fishing around in the first place. What can I say? I’m human and flawed. Anyone wishing to DM me on IG (@coopspeed) will find me open & honest, I feel like I owe people that.

I am not a “dickwad” or an “ass” or any of the other nasty words that I’ve seen, nor am I someone that deserves for you to “hate” me. I’m not “mentally ill,” but mentally damaged, absolutely. My misguided actions have not been about my “ego” or about personally “gloating” but instead about clumsily trying to guide well-deserved attention to what I see as a bad person who has behaved atrociously. As far as being “insecure,” yeah, I’d have a hard time arguing with that one. Were that not the case, I probably never would have spoken up to begin with and would have just been content and calm with all the the love and good fortune that I possess in my life.

What I definitely am is a very angry, nauseated and traumatized husband (with a FAR more severely traumatized wife), who has endured a horrible nightmare situation and has pretty much taken a textbook approach to making it much worse through terrible decision-making and crappy judgment. For that, I apologize to you all, and especially to my wife, who does not (ever) visit any of these online environments and has no clue, other than my original Reddit post (which I showed her after making it. She wished I hadn’t done so, but understood my motivations too.

I made my original Reddit post based on a couple of factors: First, my building disgust and humiliation at reading continual, totally erroneous theories from this community about the personal relationship between Roby & my wife, all generated by his insane, creepy, pathetic, unrelenting, longtime obsession for her as evidenced by the (entire) latest ST album (they co-wrote the music but he wrote all lyrics and song/album titles, she learned late in the process that the whole thing was a “love letter” to her), the infamous anagram, his crazy-inappropriate Twitter posts (which Valerie only recently saw when I showed them to her), his rambling, doting interviews talking about his “love” for her, and my wife’s numerous accounts of his unrelenting, deeply manipulative, disrespectful pursuit of her since they reunited 2 years ago (they were not previously estranged as some have surmised; he was dealing with his own shit and his second failed marriage) despite her continual refusals and reminders that she was not only married but viewed him only as a dear friend.

The second motivation for that original Reddit post was my wife’s deeply tormented account of what transpired in her San Diego hotel room the evening of 1/22/21 when she and Roby met up after a day’s record signing to hang out (as 27-yr friends) to enjoy some pie from a local bakery recommended by Darla. My original choice of the terms “hugely inappropriate” and “borderline predatory” were based directly on my wife’s early account of what took place that evening and not on my personal “bias.” I 100% trust her.

Contrary to popular theories, I did not take that Reddit post down because Valerie asked me to, because I am a coward, because the moderators deleted it, etc, etc. Two things prompted me to do so: First, my post was in response to other specific posts from an individual who deleted them. I felt this robbed my post of all rational context and made it look totally random, so I opted to take it down. Second, someone posted something really gross and disrespectful. This caused me to conclude (right or wrong) that I was dealing not with kind adults but with mean children and it made me say “WTF am I even doing here, wasting my time and breath?”

At some point, a mutual friend of Valerie & Roby’s (who plays in a band called @starryeyedcadet with her husband and Roby) decided to post on Reddit (after I had deleted my post) defending Roby (despite having NO info from Valerie as to what had or had not transpired in San Diego) calling me a “troll,” a “coward” and a “liar.” This was disappointing as I had previously DM’d her husband (who I’ve known for 20+ yrs) on IG letting them both know what had taken place per Valerie and what kind of person Roby is. Despite me asking them to directly verify my claims with Valerie, she did no such thing, opting instead to categorically deny everything and seek to insult/discredit me on Reddit. When I showed her post to Valerie, she became very upset and immediately messaged her friend. She told her that Roby had, in fact, behaved in a predatory manner and had imposed himself on her in SD (and previously) in a totally messed-up manner. She asked her to take the post down immediately, which was accommodated.

Sadly, it turns out that Valerie’s original account to me of the circumstances in San Diego turned out to be a LOT less sinister than she eventually revealed in the past week. When she finally found the strength to tell me what had actually happened (hysterically crying and shaking for hours), I couldn’t believe what I was hearing, and it made me physically sick. I’m obviously not going to get into details, but I will tell you this: Roby Burgos, in plain English, flat out assaulted my wife on 1/22 in her hotel room and I can unequivocally remove the word “borderline” from my initial, less informed characterization of this person as “borderline predatory.” He is a disgusting degenerate (“evil” in Valerie’s words) who completely violated my wife’s trust in him, destroyed their friendship, ended ST, irrevocably damaged her sense of trust in men and has deeply traumatized her. This is why she left ST and not because of the foolish anagram (which Valerie found out about to her horror from Roberto, after it was too late. He actually thought she’d find it beautiful or cute. She was incensed and humiliated) to know this was out there to be deciphered by the public, as it ultimately was.

As a longtime student of the law, I fully grasp the potential legal repercussions of slandering someone or defaming their character, which could include criminal prosecution and significant imprisonment. Everything that I have claimed here is 100% accurate and I invite the disgusting, predatory, assaulting pig that is Roby Burgos to hire a lawyer and to take me to court if he feels he has the case or the balls or believes that he has any chance of success. I can promise that such a move would spectacularly backfire, for Valerie would be more than ready to validate everything that I have outlined here, in a court of law; we would crucify him.

Since Valerie’s departure from ST in late January, Roby has literally vanished from the face of the earth and Darla hasn’t heard from him since, nor has anyone else. I personally could care less what has happened to him or whether he’s even alive; he’s a miserable PoS. Valerie’s only current involvement with the band/label is in granting approvals, including the latest Seen/Unseen release and the re-releases.

Again, I sincerely apologize to you all for the manner in which I have brought a very personal situation to public awareness and for how I have generally handled this highly upsetting situation…but there you have it. More than anything, I’m just relieved and happy that my soulmate of 21 years and wife of 17 years is safe with me here on the East Coast, that we are both healing from a brutal event, and that she is safe and loved in a healthy way by her family, her real friends and by you, her fans who she dearly loves & appreciates.

I will say one more thing to those who enjoy creating graphs, diagrams, timelines, iceberg charts, etc to document the sordid details of this sad, sad situation: Please do respectfully remember that these events do not entail a game to entertain you; they involve the actual lives of vulnerable, hurting human beings.

Sincerely,

Daniel Cooper