Man Stabs Wife to Death Over Facebook Posting

A man has been jailed for life for stabbing his wife to death over a posting she made on the social networking site Facebook.

Wayne Forrester, 34, told police he was devastated that his wife Emma, also 34, had changed her online profile to "single" days after he had moved out.
The Old Bailey heard Forrester drove to her home in Croydon, south London, and attacked the mother-of-two.

He stabbed her with a kitchen knife and a meat cleaver on 18 February.

Forrester, who pleaded guilty to murder, was ordered to serve a minimum term of 14 years.

Judge Brian Barker, the Common Serjeant of London, told him:

"You committed a terrible act. There is no possible excuse or justification.

"This is a tragic killing and what you have done has caused untold anguish."

Forrester, an HGV driver, was drunk and high on cocaine when he attacked the mother of two in the early hours as she slept.

He beat her, tore out clumps of her hair, and repeatedly stabbed her in the head and neck.

Neighbours were woken up by her screams. They found him sitting outside the house covered in blood and called the police.

The court heard Forrester thought his wife, a payroll administrator, was having an affair and had threatened to kill her.

The couple, who had been together for 15 years, had a "volatile" marriage, jurors were told.

'Devastated and humiliated'
The day before the murder, he called her parents and complained about his wife's Facebook entry which he said "made her look like a fool", the court heard.

In a statement to police Forrester said:

"Emma and I had just split up. She forced me out.

"She then posted messages on an internet website telling everyone she had left me and was looking to meet other men.

"I loved Emma and felt totally devastated and humiliated about what she had done to me."

In a victim impact statement, Mrs Forrester's sister Liza Rothery said the murder had had a "devastating" impact on her and parents Frances and Robert.

Miss Rothery added: "What on earth could Emma have done to result in such a brutal, callous attack on a defenseless woman?"

ORIGINAL ARTICLE

Stabbed to Death by Fellow Online Gamer?

By Andrew Levy

Online murder: Matthew Pyke could have been killed by a fellow gamer
A computer gaming fan found stabbed to death in his home may have been killed by a fellow gamer he fell out with in an online forum, it has emerged.

The blood-stained body of Matthew Pyke, 20, is understood to have been found by his girlfriend, Joanna Witton.

The couple ran a website called Wars Central where fans of Advance Wars, a computer game for the Nintendo Gameboy Advance or Nintendo DS in which armies of cartoon characters battle against each other, discuss strategies.

One of the theories being pursued by officers is that a member might have taken revenge on Mr Pyke following a dispute in cyberspace.

An anonymous comment posted on the site suggested other members suspected one of their own of the brutal murder.

'I think I speak on behalf of those of us which do know a fair bit about what happened not to press us with questions,' the author wrote.

'We may know a lot of what was going on prior to the killing but I, for one, am not going to say any more.'

Another member, using the pseudonym The Evil One, paid tribute to Mr Pyke as 'witty, intelligent, furiously protective of the site, the forum and its members'.

Advance Wars is a popular series of games where the object is to defeat the enemy army by either capturing their headquarters or destroying all of their units.

Mr Pyke's website offered strategy guides for the series of games as well as an internet forum where members could chat to each other and share tips on playing the game.
Wars Central

Wars Central, the website devoted to the Advance Wars computer game, run by Matthew Pyke and his girlfriend Joanna Witton.

An entry on the site from August 16 by JoJo, believed to be Joanna Witton, mentions they were having internet connection problems which had prevented information being uploaded onto the site.

Mr Pyke's body was found on Friday evening in the flat above The Orange Tree, a popular student pub in the centre of Nottingham.

There were no signs of a break-in at the Nottingham flat the students shared and police believe he may have known his killer.

He is understood to have been about to start a new degree course at Nottingham Trent University after failing to complete a physics course he joined in 2006.

Detectives examined his computer and discovered he was a keen video gamer who went under the name 'Shade' on the Central Wars site and had published science fiction stories on the internet.

Forensics officers are still examining the flat.
Mr Pyke moved to Nottingham from his home town of Stowmarket, Suffolk, two years ago.

His parents William, 52, and Kim, 49, were too upset to comment yesterday. Police said they were 'devastated' by his death.

The couple left a tribute on his Facebook website saying: 'Darling Matthew. We love you so much and miss you.

'You were a truly good, sensitive person. Your smile will live on in our hearts.'

Chiraag Suchak, who was in the student's class at Combs Middle School in Stowmarket, said they used to play on a PlayStation games console every weekend.

'He is someone that would never, ever provoke anyone, so I have no idea who would do this,' he said.

Ian Crissell, the school's head teacher, described him as a conscientious pupil who had been liked by all the members of staff.

'It is no surprise he went on to further education. He had worked hard in order to get himself into that situation,' he said.

A police spokesman yesterday said a number of lines of inquiry were being pursued including 'computer-based inquiries'.

Detective Chief Inspector Tony Heydon, of Nottinghamshire Police, asked any member of public who had seen a 'bladed weapon, possibly blood-stained', to come forward.

He also said he wanted to hear from anyone who saw someone in the area wearing bloodstained clothes - although it is possible the killer would have had to change after the frenzied attack and may have dumped what they were wearing.

Mr Heydon added: 'Matthew was a young man with his whole life ahead of him and we are doing everything we can to catch the person responsible for his murder.'

SOURCE

Lori Drew (MySpace Suicide Perpetrator) Tries To Get Case Dismissed... AGAIN

A federal judge has tentatively rejected two motions to dismiss charges against a woman in a MySpace hoax that allegedly led to a 13-year-old girl's suicide.

During a hearing Thursday, U.S. District Judge George H. Wu said he intends to take more time to consider a third motion to dismiss the case against Lori Drew of O'Fallon, Mo. She is accused of helping create a false-identity account on the social networking site and harassing her young neighbor with cruel messages.

The girl subsequently hanged herself in 2006.

Drew has pleaded not guilty after being indicted by a federal grand jury in Los Angeles.

A defense attorney previously argued that prosecutors are bending a cyber crime statute to prosecute his client on charges of conspiracy and accessing computers without authorization to get information used to inflict emotional distress.

Wu set an Oct. 7 trial date.

SOURCE

Husband Seeks Divorce Over Online Affair

(February, 1996) BRIDGEWATER, New Jersey (AP) -- A man filing for divorce accused his wife of carrying on a "virtual" affair via computer with a cybersex partner who called himself "The Weasel."

Diane Goydan's relationship with the man apparently never was consummated, but her husband, John Goydan of Bridgewater, claimed the pair had planned a real tryst this weekend at a New Hampshire bed and breakfast.

Goydan filed divorce papers January 23 that included dozens of e-mail exchanges -- some sexually explicit -- between his wife and a married man she met on America Online. The man, whose on-line name was The Weasel, was identified in court papers only as Ray from North Carolina.

In a November 23 message, The Weasel wrote: "I gotta tell you that I am one happy guy now and so much at peace again anticipating us. I love you dearly. XXOOXX."

Goydan is now seeking custody of the couple's two children, ages 3 and 7.

Goydan's lawyer, Richard Hurley, said Mrs. Goydan apparently believed the e-mail messages could not be retrieved, but her husband was able to pull them off the computer and store them on a disk.

That raises some privacy concerns, such as what rights spouses have to each other's communications, said David Banisar, spokesman for the Electronic Privacy Information Center in Washington.

"If it's a shared computer, then the spouse has equal rights to get on it and share what's on it," Banisar said. But if the husband gained access to her e-mail on line, that could violate her privacy rights, similar to a husband tapping his wife's telephone. "It's still pretty undefined in the law," Banisar said.

The divorce papers do not say exactly how Goydan retrieved the messages. Goydan began saving his wife's e-mail every day after surprising her as she was printing out something on the computer when he came home from work early. When Goydan later switched on the computer, it told him there was something waiting to be printed, and he discovered a message to his wife from The Weasel.

The lawsuit claims Mrs. Goydan promised that day to end [Internet Affair] the relationship but later that night sent The Weasel a message that they had been caught. Weeks later, she messaged: "I just have to learn to be more careful. ... I want so badly to be with you that I am willing to chance it."

Reached by telephone at home, Mrs. Goydan said, "You're kidding me" and hung up.

ORIGINAL ARTICLE HERE

TO ALL OUR READERS

As you can see -- we have a new design. However, it needs a lot of work so please bear with us over the next couple weeks as we tweak things.

The blog was looking messy and jumbled... as our site grew the design tried to grow with it. Finally we chose to upgrade.

We hope to make it cleaner and more accessible. We still have LOADS of links to put back up so if you don't see what you want -- come back in a couple days! We are working hard to get back to normal.

Keep reading -- we will continue our consistent updating of posts!

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E-mail threat leads to cyberstalking charge

A Wilmington, North Carolina man faces a charge of cyberstalking after a Gastonia man told police he e-mailed death threats.

Keith Bailey, 39, told Gastonia Police that Melvin Franklin Douglas Lutz, 38, sent him threatening messages.

Bailey gave Gastonia Police an e-mail message sent May 24, 2007, where Lutz writes that Bailey had messed up their business and lied about raising profits.

"I sold my home out of desperation because of my legal responsibilities. You used that money to buy a motorcycle...," Lutz wrote via e-mail.

"This is a declaration of war. I am going (to do) everything I know to destroy your life both metaphorically (sic) and in reality. Every word out of your mouth is a lie, the world will be a much better place once I put you 6 feet under."

Bailey responded to his message with an e-mail of his own.

"What the hell are you talking about? I don't talk about you, think about you or do anything to you," Bailey wrote. "I have my own problems to deal with thanks to trying to help you and I don't have time to "(expletive) up" anything you're doing. I haven't a clue what you're doing, planning to do or have don't and don't want to know unless I have to."

Lutz faces a charge of cyberstalking and is in Gaston County Jail under a $1,000 secured bond.

CyberStalking Case Urges Lawmakers to Make New Laws

By JOSEPH SLACIAN

Emily Jones received a startling call from her pastor in March.

The pastor, who was taking a new position out of state, was adding members of his congregation to his Facebook account to keep in touch with after the move. He found a Facebook page - an Internet socializing network - that purportedly belonged to Jones.

He called her after viewing the page, Jones said, because “he was concerned I had fallen away from my Christian walk.”

The site, in Jones' words, contained “the worst smut, X-rated material you could imagine.”

Ryan Brown, a sound technician at Jones' church, had created Facebook pages for Jones and her younger sister, Haley Flanagan, each containing obscene material about the two of them.

Brown admitted making the pages to Wabash police and was charged with two counts of stalking and two counts of harassment. He plead guilty to the harassment charges on Wednesday in Wabash County Superior Court.

“That's just a slap on the wrist,” the girls' mother, Cindy Flanagan, said of the probable sentence provided for in current law during a Plain Dealer interview before the hearing in Wabash Superior Court. “If he would have to file as an Internet predator or a sex offender, they could take the Internet away from him for two years.”

Jones, married and the mother of two young children, said, “Harassment to me is when someone says, ‘Hey, pretty girl,' and you feel uncomfortable. This is worse than harassment.”

Cindy Flanagan quickly added, “This is molestation.”

But, as the Flanagans and Joneses learned in the six months since the pages were discovered, Indiana doesn't have laws to punish the type of cyber-stalking the two young ladies have been subjected to for two years.

The family, with the help of State Rep. Bill Ruppel, Attorney General Steve Carter, Mayor Bob Vanlandingham and others, are trying to get laws enacted in Indiana against cyber-stalking. They said they are ready to go as far as testifying before the Indiana Legislature to make their case for tougher measures.

“It's not going to help our case currently,” Jones said, “but the next time someone does it, and if they get caught, they could be punished as a sex offender. It definitely is a sex crime.”

Facebook is an Internet social network popular among teens and young adults as a way to interact with people around the world on the computer. (The company closed the fake pages after being notified by authorities.)

Because the site was seen worldwide, the sisters fear for their safety.

The sisters have taken self defense courses, and other measures to protect themselves.

What makes it even more disgusting, Jones said, is to think of the number of men around the world who have conversations over the computer with Brown, thinking they were actually talking to one of the sisters.

“It scares you,” she said. “These people have been having ‘relations' with us for two years. They know where we live. Our safety is definitely a concern.”
Coming forward has taken a lot of courage.

“It's scary to come forward,” Jones said. “But, if someone does it again, we need to have laws in place so they can be punished.”

ORIGINAL

Meeting with Women from Internet Turns Into a Death Trap

A man was shot and killed early 8/24/08 after being lured into a building in Brooklyn, N.Y. Police say officers found Daniel Brandt, 24, on the fourth floor of a building on West 33rd Street in Coney Island early this morning.

According to police, Brandt believed he was meeting a woman he had been communicating with over the Internet. Instead, he ran into two armed men who robbed and then shot him.

Brandt was taken to a local hospital, where he later died.

As of Sunday evening no arrests had been made, and the investigation continues.

ORIGINAL

U.S. Congress has Web Privacy in Their Sites

Here are some things Internet users can discover about Kiyoshi Martinez, a 24-year-old man from Mokena, Ill., from some of his recent posts online. He watched “The Colbert Report” on Tuesday night, he likes the musician Lenlow and he received bottles of olive oil and vinegar for his birthday. Mr. Martinez has Facebook and LinkedIn pages, a Twitter account and a Web site that includes his résumé.

So it is surprising to learn that Mr. Martinez, an aide in the Illinois Senate, is also vigilant about his privacy online.

“I’m pretty aware of the fact that ANYTHING you do on the Internet pretty much should just be considered public,” Mr. Martinez said. While he knows that companies are collecting his data and often tracking his online habits so they can show him more relevant ads, he said, he would like to see more transparency “about what the company intends to do with your data and your information.”

“Like all privacy matters, it’s something that people need to be informed on,” Mr. Martinez said.

Those same questions of data collection and privacy policies are attracting the attention of Congress, too. There is no broad privacy legislation governing advertising on the Internet. And even some in the government admit that they do not have a clear grasp of what companies are able to do with the wealth of data now available to them.

“That is why Congress, at this point, is wanting to gather a lot more information, because no one knows,” said Steven A. Hetcher, a professor at Vanderbilt University Law School. “That information is incredibly valuable; it’s the new frontier of advertising.”

Beyond the data question, there are issues of how companies should tell browsers that their information is being tracked, which area of law covers this and what — if anything — proper regulation would look like.

On Aug. 1, four top members of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce sent letters ordering 33 cable and Internet companies, including Google, Microsoft, Comcast and Cox Communications, to provide details about their privacy standards. That followed House and Senate hearings last month about privacy and behavioral targeting, in which advertisers show ads to consumers based on their travels around the Web. If an advertiser knows that Mr. Martinez watches “The Colbert Report,” for example, it might show him an ad for “The Daily Show.”

As advertisers become more sophisticated about behavioral targeting, and online privacy standards become increasingly varied, regulators and privacy advocates are becoming concerned. A few companies have taken precautionary measures to try to fend off criticism; in the last few days, for instance, both Yahoo and Google have made it easier for people to opt out of targeted ads on their sites. But that may not be enough.

“Some type of omnibus electronic privacy legislation is needed,” said Representative Edward J. Markey, Democrat of Massachusetts, chairman of the House Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet, “regardless of the particular technologies or companies involved.”

He and the other members of the House expect to receive responses from all of the companies by early this week. With the responses to the House letters, “we can understand exactly what each sector of the communications industry is technically capable of doing, and how they use the information once they do get access to it.”

One of the controversial new behavioral-targeting technologies is called deep packet inspection, and a company that does it — NebuAd — was a focus of the July Congressional hearings.

In NebuAd’s version of deep packet inspection, a hardware device is put into an Internet service provider’s network that can track where users are going online. NebuAd looks for categories that the user will be interested in. If the device notes that a user is browsing or searching for sites about German automobiles, it can deliver an ad about German automobiles later that day, even when the user is on a site about pets.

NebuAd’s chief executive, Bob Dykes, who testified at the hearings last month, said his company protects privacy.

“We don’t have any raw data on the identifiable individual,” Mr. Dykes said in an interview last month. “Everything is anonymous.”

He said NebuAd took several steps to ensure that the information could not be traced back to an individual or an Internet protocol address. The company avoids sensitive categories, he said; someone making a search about H.I.V., for example, would not see related ads. And NebuAd cannot gain access to secure sites.

Mr. Dykes came under scrutiny at the hearings for NebuAd’s technology and for how the company notified consumers.

The ways that some Internet service providers told consumers about their tracking were vague or too subtle, some privacy advocates and congressmen said.

NebuAd lost several customers this summer amid all the scrutiny, including CenturyTel, Charter Communications, WideOpenWest Holdings and Embarq.

“We will not be using this technology again until such time as all the privacy concerns have been addressed,” said Charles Fleckenstein, an Embarq spokesman.

Mr. Dykes said, “We are perfectly O.K. for some of our partners to wait until we have a better, more informed education of the public and folks in Washington before they resume their rollout.”

The NebuAd controversy illustrates the difficulty of regulation in online advertising, when new ways of tracking users arise regularly and companies have different ways of handling data.

The Federal Trade Commission has made some tentative steps toward standards, including a December proposal on behavioral-advertising practices. The proposal suggested that companies provide a clear notice to consumers that lets them opt out of tracking, notify consumers if the company changes the way it uses the data and use reasonable security measures. It also sought comment on several matters.

But Lydia B. Parnes, the director of the F.T.C.’s Bureau of Consumer Protection, has said she supports industry self-regulation, saying that it isn’t yet clear that the consumer is being harmed and that regulations might be too specific to current technologies. Laws have been made on slices of the privacy pie, including data about finances or children. But complying with various pieces of legislation is difficult, companies said.

“Compliance is becoming very complex and not very clear in terms of what applies to a new and emerging business model,” said Mike Hintze, the associate general counsel at Microsoft. “From the company’s perspective of trying to comply with these laws, we thought a comprehensive federal privacy law made a lot of sense.”

There is some industry support for a comprehensive law, but any wide-ranging law would require some legal wrangling.

“They’re raising these bigger-picture questions, and those questions are inherently intertwined not just with privacy laws, but also with contract law, computer-intrusion law, consumer-fraud law,” said Andrea M. Matwyshyn, an assistant professor of legal studies and business ethics at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.

“When legislators are trying to regulate in this area, they’re always caught a little bit between a rock and a hard place,” she said. “You don’t want to adopt a technology-specific standard that’s destined to fail as technology advances faster than the law can ever hope to embody. At the same time, you need to allow adequate specificity in the law to allow companies to comply with it and allow consumers to know what their rights are.”

Some advertising industry groups say self-regulation is enough. The most prominent programs are the Online Privacy Alliance and the Network Advertising Initiative. Both ask members to follow principles on notifying consumers and avoiding personally identifiable information.

Regulation is “certainly going to have unintended consequences and unintended impact,” said Mike Zaneis, the vice president for public policy at the Interactive Advertising Bureau, a coalition of online advertisers.

Some civil liberties groups disagreed.

“There’s a self-regulatory program out there which hasn’t been very effective,” said Alissa Cooper, the chief computer scientist at the Center for Democracy and Technology. She said her organization was concerned about NebuAd’s technology. As for general federal privacy legislation, she said, the center supports it but thinks more information is needed about data-handling.

The letter from the House committee, she said, was “a really welcome development in the absence of any kind of regulation.”

“The companies don’t feel the need to explain everything they’re doing,” she said, “so a little bit of pressure from Congress or the F.T.C. can go a long way.”

As government representatives think about legislation, they are also trying to gauge how aware and concerned consumers are about online privacy. A recent study of about 1,000 Internet users asked them if they agreed with the statement that they were comfortable with advertisers’ using their browsing history to decide what ads to show them. Thirty-nine percent strongly disagreed; only 6 percent strongly agreed. The study was conducted by TNS Global, a research firm, and TRUSTe, an online privacy network.

Is privacy a concern for younger consumers, who are splashing personal details all over MySpace? The sparse data available suggest that it is. A study last year of 2,274 British adults showed that people ages 18 to 24 considered privacy tied with “avoiding hate and offense” as the most important consideration in digital technologies. For older people, privacy was second to “avoiding hate and offense.” The study was conducted by YouGov, a British research firm.

“People my age — in their 20s or in their 30s — a lot of them are very clued up on protecting privacy on the Internet,” said Ben Saxon, 23, a student in Cambridge, England. He has started a Facebook group objecting to Phorm, a NebuAd-like company that is working in Britain and is starting to court the United States market.

Still, he said, “I don’t think complete privacy on the Internet is actually possible anymore.”

ORIGINAL ARTICLE

Cyberstalker Arrested in Indiana

FORT WAYNE -- Police in Wabash arrested a man for cyber-stalking two sisters -- one of them underage -- and using their identities for sex for two years before he was discovered.

Prosecutors charged the man -- who worked at the family's church -- with felony stalking and misdemeanor harrassment.

Police say he created Facebook pages under the young women's names, then pretended to be them -- posting pictures of them, displaying their addresses and phone numbers, and even detailing their after-school activities and work places.

Using those fake identities, he had virtual sex with men around the world, using language so graphic, we can't share it with you.

The ruse was discovered by their pastor, who was compiling an Internet list of his congregation to take to his new position out of town.

And since their personal information was in cyber-space for two years, the young women now fear for their safety.

Haley Flanagan\Had Identity Assumed:

" Me and my sister have both taken a self-defense class. We carry Mace on our keychains with us. And I don't go anywhere by myself."

Cindy Flanagan\Daughters Had Identities Assumed:

"These laws need to have some teeth to them, and not just a general law. They need to be substance, they need to be basic enough that it's okay if the Internet changes that they can still apply it to whatever the new technology would be."

The best way to protect yourself and your children? Google your name and see what pops up. If there's anything fishy, call the police.

The man is scheduled to be in court August 20th.

But even if he's convicted of stalking and harrassment, he still wouldn't have to register as a sex offender, which would restrict his Internet use.

That's partly why the family is working with state and federal legislators to draft some stricter laws.

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Michigan woman charged with cyber-stalking

Police say messages posted to a blog were threatening, harassing

In an electronic age which makes every text-message, e-mail and blog entry part of cyberspace permanent record, a particularly vicious break-up can lead to criminal charges as well as broken hearts.
Frances Boensch, 28, of Essexville (Michigan), found that out the hard way. After contacting police ...about what she said were threats from a former lover, Michigan State Police launched an investigation that lead to cyber-stalking charges filed against Boensch.

Boensch was free on a $5,000 bond after being arraigned last week in Bay County District Court on a charge of stalking via posting a threatening message on the Internet.

If convicted of the felony, she faces up to two years in prison.

Boensch works at Delta College, teaching her colleagues to avoid sexual harassment.

But police and prosecutors have decided that entries in Boensch's blog, along with content of text messages and e-mails to the alleged victim, amount to Internet stalking.

In 1993, Michigan became the first state to make "electronic stalking" a crime, but Bay County Chief Assistant Prosecutor Nancy Borushko said this is the first case that she personally has been involved in.

"As more people have access to the Internet and get more comfortable online, I think we may see more charges like this," Borushko said. "We're not talking about protected speech here, we're talking about things that make the victim feel terrorized, threatened or molested."

The Times was unable to reach Boensch, of 886 N. York Drive, for comment.

Her defense attorney, Joseph S. Scorsone, said he advises his clients not to make statements while charges are pending, but that he will be prepared to make a statement on her behalf after the preliminary evidence hearing, set for Aug. 12.

The blog - frandazzel.com - has been cleared of the previous content, and the lone page at the address [used to show] a photo of Boensch's face, wearing sunglasses, in a cemetery full of white crosses.

"With much sadness, I have to report that frandazzel has died," the message said. "She was brutally raped and murdered for reasons unknown to us at this time."

The police report prepared by Michigan State Police Trooper Elizabeth Hunt, however, contains copies various blog postings, e-mails and text-messages. A blog - short for Web log - is like an online diary.

Hunt launched an investigation after Boensch, herself, called Delta College police to report that she was being threatened by someone via e-mail who claimed to have semi-nude photos of her that were about to be printed and distributed.

While no criminal charges stemmed from that incident, Hunt spoke to the person identified as the suspect, a former lover of Boensch, who provided additional information about the blog and other communications from Boensch.

"With technology," Borushko said, "things can be saved for a very long time."

Ironically, in literature distributed by Boensch to Delta employees, she urges her colleagues to "record the date and time" of any threatening actions by another and to "save all e-mails, voicemails, and messages that relate to the complaint."
~~~~

What is Internet stalking?

Michigan Compiled Law 750.411s forbids a person from posting a message 'through the use of any medium of communication, including the Internet or a computer, computer program, computer system, or computer network, or other electronic medium of communication, without the victim's consent' if several other factors are present.

Those factors are:

• The poster realizes 'that posting the message could cause two or more separate noncontinuous acts of unconsented contact with the victim.'

• Posting the message is intended to cause conduct that would make the victim feel terrorized, frightened, intimidated, threatened, harassed, or molested.

• Conduct arising from posting the message would cause a reasonable person to suffer emotional distress and to feel terrorized, frightened, intimidated, threatened, harassed, or molested.

• Conduct arising from posting the message causes the victim to suffer emotional distress and to feel terrorized, frightened, intimidated, threatened, harassed, or molested.

Conviction is punishable by up to two years in prison and $5,000 in fines.

However, if the posting results in a credible threat against the victim, violates probation or a restraining order or if the victim is under 18 and five years younger than the perpetrator, the crime in punishable by up to five years in prison.

The section does not prohibit constitutionally protected speech or activity.

FROM THIS RESOURCE

Man Held his Internet Lover Prisoner when She Tried to End It

[United Kingdom:] Paul Peccioli, 55, "reacted badly" when Julia Pickup, whom he met online, told him she thought they should stop seeing each other, a court heard.

When Miss Pickup, 51, told him that their six-month relationship was over he banged his head against a wall then held up an airgun, telling Miss Pickup he would "deck her if she was a man", Leicester Crown Court was told.

The court heard that over the next few days Peccioli, a former Conservative member of Daventry District Council, slapped Miss Pickup's legs and threatened to take an overdose.

When she tried to go to work one morning, four days after she had ended their relationship, Peccioli blocked her path.

But he allowed her to call in to explain her absence. Two workmates realised something was wrong and went to her home.

When they arrived at the property in Ullesthorpe, Leicestershire, Miss Pickup escaped but Peccioli chased after them in his own car.

Mr Thatcher told the court: "She ran out to the waiting car. When Peccioli realised what was happening he ran out after her, screaming."

Miss Pickup's colleague did not know the village and turned into a cul-de-sac.

Peccioli tried to open the doors of the car, forcing Miss Pickup's colleague to mount the pavement. They managed to drive away, but Peccioli was following at high speeds.

Miss Pickup's colleague drove to the nearest police station where Peccioli was arrested.

He pleaded guilty to putting a person in fear of violence by harassment and blamed his driving on "emotional upset".

The couple met via the internet in March last year, but Miss Pickup ended the relationship in September after Peccioli became "possessive and overbearing".

Peccioli was given a 12-month suspended prison sentence and a restraining order that prevents him from going within 50 metres of Miss Pickup's home or contacting her.

Judge Michael Pert QC said: "I am prepared to accept that at this late stage of your life you have made a fool of yourself rather than being an inherently dangerous person.

"But that is of little consolation to your victim, and I have to take steps to protect her. Your behaviour during this incident was disgraceful."

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Please contact the ORIGINAL writer and source of this article if you have any problems, or corrections.

Do a Criminal Search on Them!

Confirm your worst suspicions about the one that got away

“Do you really know who people are?” That’s the slogan for pay site PeopleFinders.com's freshly launched (and totally free!) companion site, CriminalSearches.com. Do you want to know? Everybody has something to hide — so the cliché goes. That’s where CriminalSearches.com comes in.

Totally free and possibly the most intuitive Web site of its sort, CriminalSearches.com painstakingly culled and standardized the disparate record-keeping practices of counties, municipalities, cities and states to provide an almost-instant snapshot of neighborhoods and people with criminal records.

Parents may favor the comprehensive Sex Offender section of the site, which includes photos and details of offenses with its record returns. Meanwhile, privacy advocates are apoplectic. What’s more, critics decry such sites as yet another attack on America’s privacy — not to mention potentially disastrous inaccuracies, incorrect or incomplete information provided by the original record keepers.

Still, nobody’s talking about the totally awesome aspect of this whole criminal record compilation. Why settle for Google stalking your ex when you can confirm your worst suspicions by looking them up on CriminalSearches.com? Who wants to read about happy marriages and job satisfaction on Facebook?

Do it! Do it now! CriminalSearches.com your ex!

That Power Point presentation can wait an extra minute. If you’ve ever questioned for one second the direction your life’s taken — or even if you haven’t — it may do wonders for your self-assurance. I myself never doubted ditching that age-inappropriate bad boy once I finally extracted myself from that unfavorable situation in my late teens. For years however, I did beat myself up for the length of time it took me to finally see the light. But two seconds on CriminalSearches.com washed away any remnants of self-recrimination that may’ve been lurking.

My ex Loser’s name returned almost-immediate confirmation that getting out of that relationship — not to mention that state — was the right choice, even if it took me longer than I’d prefer. There, under Loser’s name, corresponding birthday and county of residence was an early conviction that occurred before we became involved, one of which I was previously aware.

(Sad to say, at the time, his run-in with Johnny Law was part of the attraction – that’s before I wised up and started finding my dates in music magazine classifieds, under “Guitarist Available.”)

In the years since I ended my acquaintance with Loser, there were a couple of shocking additions to Loser's record — most appalling, a record of child abuse/neglect accompanied on the same date with a creepily oblique “O” offense for “Other.” (CriminalSearches.com conveniently color codes offenses with letters for quick reference: Red “S” for sex offense, purple “V” for Violent, etc.)

My inner Sherlock piqued but stomach nauseous, I chose not to pay the $40 to get further details from the affiliated PeopleFinders.com. Instead, I called a friend and insisted she do the same. Always game for a good Internet scavenger hunt, she inserted the name of a former beau she knew for a fact had some sort of police record related to owning a pet wolf that mauled some dude — and fully expected to see his name pop up with the specified “O” icon.

Nothing.

So I turned to my sister. Seeing as we share a genetic predisposition for bad seeds, I felt certain she’d get some positive returns in the ex department. Instead, she decided to search for herself.

What she found was a woman of a similar name living in an entirely different state and a list of that woman’s traffic offenses — yet no acknowledgement of my sister’s identity let alone her own speeding ticket legacy. Disappointed, she made what some might consider a risky move and looked up her husband — fully expecting to find his own collection of traffic offenses.

Again, nothing.

So she tried Charles Manson and came up with many — but none that appeared to be THE Charles Manson. So she tried some more recent notorious criminals of somewhat less renown, (who, along with Charles Manson, she never, ever dated) and found their records straight away.

Then she was on to her ex-husband, a man we lovingly refer to as “Wingnut.” Alas, nothing. A search for our other sister’s husband also proved an exercise in futility as we’re unsure of his birthday and he shares a ridiculously common name. She then moved on to her neighbor, of whom she’d heard rumors of a youthful indiscretion. But again, there were so many people who shared his name, the search was inconclusive.

My sister reasoned that she could probably find out his birthday and search again, but by then, she was bored. What’s more, he's good guy and also a friend so she wasn’t so sure she really wanted to know what he did in his younger years. Which, given omissions and possibilities of incorrect or misinterpreted information, is probably the best policy when using such sites. Consider it like your horoscope — for entertainment value only.

Like my friend, who we’ll call “Grumpy.” He checked up on each member of his family just for giggles and learned that his buttoned-down uncle got busted for drug possession in 1979.

“Wow!” Grumpy reported. “I love this Web site.”

ORIGINAL

Off to Jail for Off2Hunt

EOPC first reported this two years ago... despite the slow wheels of justice... looks like Richard Kudlik's accountability moment finally arrived.

Officials: Man posed as federal marshal to impress women

It could be off to federal prison for "Off2hunt."

Richard Kudlik, who used that name in online chat-rooms while pretending to be a federal marshal, pleaded guilty Monday in U.S. District Court in Central Islip [Long Island, New York] to two counts of possessing a counterfeit U.S. Marshal's badge, officials said.

In real life, Kudlik, 45, of Port Jefferson Station, was a mechanic's helper at the federal Plum Island Animal Disease Center.

But online, Kudlik took on the persona of a latter-day Wyatt Earp to attract women with tales of his exploits as a U.S. Marshal, hunting down fugitives and guarding politicians, officials said.

"He was using the marshals service as a way to get girls," a spokesman for the U.S. Marshals Service said in 2006 at the time of Kudlik's arrest.

Kudlik had been warned in 2005 about impersonating a marshal after Suffolk police spotted him with a marshal's jacket in his car, officials said. Kudlik promised to stop, so he was not charged then, officials have said.

Kudlik was arrested by real marshals in 2006, after he was outed by a former girlfriend who discovered he was a married man. She told officials he was still pretending to be a marshal.

The former girlfriend, Pamela Brown, of Mattituck, [Long Island, New York] had set up a Web site, the similarly named off2hunt.com, to warn other women about Kudlik's activities.

"You couldn't even question his stories because you could see emotion in his face as he told them," Brown said in a Newsday interview in 2006.

Kudlik's attorney, federal public defender Tracey Gaffey, declined to comment yesterday, as did federal prosecutor Charles Kelly.

Kudlik's wedding photo - 1980s(?)
Kudlik could be sentenced to up to six months in prison on the misdemeanor charges.

ORIGINAL

Lori Drew's Defense? "Everyone Does It!"

Someone please throw the book at Lori Drew. The woman's a murdering sociopath. She stalks and harrasses a teenager online using a fake identity. So badly in fact, the poor kid commits suicide. Then what does she do?:

MEGAN MEIER

• She tells Megan Meier's (the victim's) parents to "give it a rest."
  
• Then she files a police report and get your attorney to try to rewrite history so you can backpedal.
  
• Then she files a police report on the Meier family for being so angry over the DEATH OF THEIR DAUGHTER they ruined your fuzball table. (everyone knows fuzball tables are worth more than a LIFE!)
  
• Then she wants everyone to feel sorry for her because now SHE'S being harrassed; once the story comes out.
  
• Then she tries blame her employee, another teenager, Ashley Grills.
• now... the article below once the Feds FINALLY do what Jack Banas and the lame politicos in O'Fallon, MO failed to do --
  

Mrs. Drew didn't your mother tell you that just because everyone else does it doesn't mean it's O.K. for you to do, too?

Mrs. Drew do you have any sense of RESPONSIBILITY?

Mrs. Drew - you're guilty in our book. Quit your whining. Go to prison. No passing GO, no collecting dime one for your 'pain & suffering.'

Myspace suicide woman 'did what loads of people do online'
By Emma Hughes
Pretended to be someone else and hassled a teen so much she killed herself

MISSOURI MOTHER Lori Drew’s lawyer is now arguing that if she is guilty, then so are millions of other internet users every day.

The case concerns the harassment of a young girl over the net which spiralled out of control when the torment got too much for thirteen-year old Megan Meier, who was subsequently found hung in her bedroom. Drew is charged with one count of conspiracy and three counts of accessing a computer without authorization.

Court papers filed yesterday show that while what Drew did can be seen as wrong, there is no actual legal sanction against it. Drew’s assumed identity of a 16-year-old-boy ‘Josh Evans’ and a count of conspiracy is all she can be pinned for.

Defense attorney H. Dean Steward wrote: “The government, in its zeal to charge Lori Drew with something, anything, has tried to criminalise everyday, ordinary conduct: the wayward or misuse of a social network site”.

This causes a problem, as Drew is but a drop in an ocean of people who commit this ‘crime’ every day.

A former computer crime prosecutor, Mark Rasch confirms this point by noting that “the problem with this case is it makes a criminal out of virtually everybody online.”

Orin S. Kerr, a former federal computer crime prosecutor points out that “the possibilities for abuse are endless because Web site terms of service are arbitrary”, and so the debate continues.

ORIGINAL

THE MEGAN MEIER FOUNDATION

CLICK HERE TO DISCUSS THE MEGAN MEIER CASE

RELATED POSTS:

WEB HOAX LED GIRL TO KILL HERSELF

MYSPACE HOAX VICTIMS' FAMILY SEEKS JUSTICE

PUBLIC OUTCRY ON THE MEGAN MEIER CASE

A PERFECT EXAMPLE OF WHY EOPC RUNS THIS SITE

EOPC ATTACKED ON TV OVER MEGAN MEIER CASE

JUSTICE FOR MEGAN MEIER

SUPPORT FOR OUR STAND ON THE MEGAN MEIER CASE

MEDIA PEES ON MEGAN AND TELLS BLOGGERS ITS RAIN

THE MEGAN MEIER CASE

NO APOLOGY, EVEN IN DEATH, FROM MEGAN'S 'MURDERER'

LORI DREW: PREDATOR OR INTERNET MARTYR?

LORI DREW: HAPPY; MEGAN MEIER: DEAD

MYSPACE SUICIDE CASE: NOT OVER

MYSPACE SUICIDE CASE - SOME TRUTH AT LAST

LORI DREW - FINALLY INDICTED

BRIAN ELLINGTON - Con Man, Sexual Predator, Possible Cyberpath

We took these excerpts from our friends at LoveFraud who have a wonderful 4 page write up on this person. We urge you to read & heed it - CLICK HERE

Pictures of Mr. Ellington are available there as well.

from LOVEFRAUD:

This person is real. This happened to me from September 2005 until October 2006. I was barely able to drag myself away from him. It is my opinion that he will not stop his lying and conning/fraud behaviors unless the authorities physically stop him. Despite repeated complaints to the police and 200 very detailed and organized pages of statement/saved evidence, identifying information, etc., etc.—I handed everything to them on a silver platter—the New York City Police refuse to take any action whatsoever to stop this career liar.

(We have heard this REPEATEDLY at EOPC. That police and law enforcement refuse to do anything about the threats, the information regarding fraud, soliciting prostitutes, scamming, etc that victims find online. Some victims have had to go to Congresspeople, Senators and Provincal Officials to get ANY action from the police at all.

By the way - this is the second time we have heard about NYPD giving 'relationship advice' rather than DOING anything)

I am an adult and I accept my own mistakes in allowing a bad person to be in my life and I accept my losses. I accept that the money is gone forever. I will deal with the consequences like the responsible adult that I am. What really bothers and haunts me is that he is out there and he will NOT stop. I think he will never stop, and the authorities are just flat out choosing to ignore it.

It is my opinion that this man targets women. Brian Ellington has no recent (as in the last two years) stable employment history and no recent rental history that I could find. These facts, combined with unemployment and no money, require a new relationship with a female who will pay or allow him to stay for free. A smart person looking to get away with these behaviors can easily find that when you combine sex with fraud and stealing, the police don't care.

The New York Police have every opportunity to stop him. They could conduct a simple undercover operation if they do not feel they have enough evidence—I am convinced he will repeat the illegal fraudulent behavior—and they could very easily take him off the street.

But the New York Police Department refuses to act.

MORE:

I did a background check on him using www.intelius.com. This revealed 75—yes, 75—pages of arrest records for multiple counts of public urination, marijuana possession and selling in college, drunk driving, driving with license revoked, credit card theft, credit card fraud and multiple counts of larceny.

That check didn't yet include his most recent conviction—I found that later on the North Carolina Department of Corrections website. He was convicted of charging to someone else's credit card and ordered to pay approximately $9,500 in fines and restitution.

MORE:

I had attached an IP address tracking software to my MySpace page, which told me the location and address of anyone who clicked on my page. Most of my hits were always from him. I was getting hits on my page from Ridgefield, California and nothing from North Carolina , so I thought something was fishy. I'm pretty sure he was in California.

After a few days, I was getting Internet hits on my web page from Las Vegas . I believe it was Brian; he said he was going there. I did not shut down my web page because I wanted to have a way to tell where he was. Then a week later, he started writing nasty e-mails to my MySpace account. They came from a Kinko's in Tennessee , and it looked like he went back to Kinko's three times over the course of the day.

(Wonder why he was online so much? Looking for other targets probably and checking up on this one!)

YOU CAN ALSO READ MORE BY CLICKING HERE

Internet News - Click the Links to Read

Feel free to share these articles with your friends & family as well as law enforcement if you are reporting similar crimes!

Boyfriend's campaign of hatred - 07/01/08
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/boyfriends-campaign-of-hatred/2008/06/30/1214677946072.html
WHEN Elvis Kovacic discovered his girlfriend was still friends with a former boyfriend he had never met, the 30-year-old accountant set out to destroy the man's reputation in an anonymous hate campaign of phone threats, pamphlet letterbox drops and emails.

Former Morris undersheriff pleads guilty to internet harassment - 06/30/08
http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2008/06/former_undersheriff_pleads_gui.html
A former Morris County undersheriff admitted this morning he posted sexually explicit photographs of a woman on the internet without her consent.

MySpace Users Struggle to Overcome Cybervandalism - 06/30/08
http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/147730/myspace_users_struggle_to_overcome_cybervandalism.html
One of the first social networking upstarts, MySpace, is facing continuing security problems that threaten to spoil many of the innovative features that make the site useful.

300 Internet death threats since Tokyo killing spree - 06/28/08
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20080628/tc_afp/japancrimeinternet;_ylt=Akot5_oBszx87fky4hHfIpf6VbIF
As many as 300 Internet warnings of mass murder and other death threats have been posted online in Japan after a knifing rampage in Tokyo left seven people dead, media said Saturday.

Man used GPS device to stalk victim, court told - 06/28/08
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,23933333-421,00.html
A GOLD Coast businessman who allegedly attached a high-tech tracking device to a female acquaintance's car has appeared in Southport Magistrate's Court charged with stalking.

Hackers Hijack, Redirect IANA and ICANN Web Sites - 06/27/08
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nf/20080627/tc_nf/60525;_ylt=Ajjh9V1ntxF0tue4FHgUJcX6VbIF
Hackers calling themselves NetDevilz temporarily hijacked the sites of key organizations that control routing of Internet traffic and redirected them to a taunting page.

Philadelphia Man Arrested For YouTube Cop Threat - 06/27/08
http://cbs2.com/national/Andre.Moore.YouTube.2.758316.html
Video Shows Security Guard Praising Murder Of Police 'Because I Hate Them'

The password, please: Keep your sanity and your security - 06/27/08
http://www.heraldnews.com/lifestyle/x2113787276/The-password-please-Keep-your-sanity-and-your-security
Your head is aching and your eyes are blurry as you stare at the monitor. But, no matter how hard you try, you can’t seem to remember if you created your password with your dog’s name or, wait, maybe it was your husband’s ...

He said, she said: Which is it? Facebook asks - 06/27/08
http://uk.reuters.com/article/technologyNews/idUKN2633402020080628
Social network site Facebook will press members to declare whether they are male or female, seeking to end the grammatical device that leads the site to refer to individual users as "they" or "themself."

Detectives: Beware of threatening email 'scam' - 06/27/08
http://www.wptv.com/news/local/story.aspx?content_id=53758b35-7c2a-4457-9b4f-f0a0fe8fb722
Detective on the Treasure Coast say a threatening "scam" email is turning up in in-boxes throughout the region.

Rumana Says MySpace Stabbing Shows Need for Stricter Internet Controls - 06/26/08
http://www.politickernj.com/mysak/21119/rumana-says-myspace-stabbing-shows-need-stricter-internet-controls
Assemblyman Scott Rumana today said a MySpace fight between two girls that resulted in the stabbing of a 12-year-old is a prime example of why legislation he sponsored that protects personal information of children from being posted on the Internet and prohibits users from assuming false identities is necessary.

Patten to Simmonds: "You are a coward;" Patten to Boone: "Blow me!" - 06/26/08
http://www.veniceflorida.com/features/simmondsandvaba.htm
On the witness stand in the case of Lorenzo v. City of Venice et. al. last Wednesday, Councilman John Simmonds admitted that he had deleted most of his emails. With emails like the ones reproduced below, given the option of deleting them or releasing them -- yeah, deleting them probably seemed like the best option at the time, I'm sure. That's a big ooooooops.

Bismarck nursing student pleads not guilty to threats... - 06/25/08
http://www.kxmb.com/getArticle.asp?ArticleId=251189
A student at a Bismarck nursing school accused of making threats on the Internet against the school and other students has pleaded not guilty to felony terrorizing.

Malicious Spam Traffic Triples in One Week - 06/25/08
http://www.darkreading.com/document.asp?doc_id=157396&WT.svl=news1_2
A massive bot recruitment campaign appears to be behind a record surge early this month in the volume of malicious spam -- from 3 percent of all spam traffic to nearly 10 percent, according to researchers with Marshal’s TRACE team .

Privacy on the Web: Is It a Losing Battle? - 06/25/08
http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article.cfm?articleid=1999&jsessionid=9a305e32284e15464873
Visit the Amazon site to buy a book online and your welcome page will include recommendations for other books you might enjoy, including the latest from your favorite authors, all based on your history of purchases. Most customers appreciate these suggestions, much the way they would recommendations by a local librarian.

E-mail threat suspect arrested in Wenatchee - 06/25/08
http://www.omakchronicle.com/nws/n080625a.shtml
A search by Okanogan County Sheriff's Office for a 34-year-old Wenatchee woman led to her arrest June 18 in Wenatchee.

UT e-mail threat - 06/24/08
http://abclocal.go.com/wtvg/story?section=news/local&id=6225803
The Toledo man charged with ethnic intimidation against a well-known community member admits he made some strong statements, but he still denies they were threats.

Doctor pleads guilty to cyber stalking - 06/24/08
http://www.hattiesburgamerican.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080624/NEWS01/806240312/1002
A Mississippi hospice doctor has been spared jail time after authorities say he threatened three women who he thought were complaining about his facility on a Web site.

MySpace prank or violent holdup? - 06/24/08
http://www.fredericksburg.com/News/Web/2008/062008/0623sp1
Police charged two Spotsylvania County men yesterday after a Timberwood Road resident called to report a break-in and death threat. According to a press release from 1st Sgt. Liz Scott of the Spotsylvania Sheriff’s Office, the victim told police he woke up to his dogs barking at 7 a.m. and saw a man in a mask coming into his house.

Thanks to WHOA

"Get Anyone to Do Anything and Never Feel Powerless Again"

Psychological secrets to predict, control and influence every situation

[Chapter 9, Pages 42-43]
By David J. Lieberman, Ph. D.

From the bedroom to the boardroom learn how to see clearly and easily evaluate information without being swayed by those with selfish interests and unkind intentions. The manipulator's bag of tricks is stocked with seven deadly tactics that can leave you jumping through hoops. The good news is that by knowing what they are, you can watch out for them, and...never be manipulated again.

These powerful manipulators are: guilt, intimidation, appeal to ego, fear, curiosity, our desire to be liked, and love.

Anyone who uses any of these tactics is attempting to move you from logic to emotion-to a playing field that's not so level. She or he knows that she or he can't win on the facts so they will try to manipulate your emotions with any one or a combination of the tactics below.

1. Guilt: "How can you even say that?
I'm hurt that you wouldn't trust me.
I just don't know who you are anymore."

2. Intimidation: "What's the matter can't you make a decision?
Don't you have enough confidence in yourself to do this?

3. Appeal to Ego: "I can see that you're a smart person.
I wouldn't try to put anything past you.
How could I? You'd be on me in a second."

4. Fear: "You know, you might [not get "it" if you go take a pee/act un-coach able] just lose the whole thing.
I sure hope you know what you're doing.
I'm telling you that you won't get a better deal anywhere else.
This is your last shot at making things work out.
Why do you want to risk losing out on being happy?"

5. Curiosity: "Look, you only live once.
Try it? You can always go back to how things were.
It might be fun, exciting - a real adventure.
"You never know unless you try and you regret never seeing what happens."

6. Our Desire to be Liked: "I thought you were a real player. And so did everyone else.
Come on, nobody likes it when a person backs out...this can be your chance to prove what you're made of."

7. Love: "If you loved me you wouldn't question me.
Of course I have only your best interests at heart.
I wouldn't lie to you. You know that deep down inside, don't you?
We can have a wonderful relationship if you'd only let yourself go and experience the wonders that the future will deliver to us."

Strategy Review:
Look and listen objectively--not only to the words but also to the message.The abusive maneuvers interfere with your ability to digest facts. When these emotions creep into your thinking, temporarily suspend your feelings and look at the messenger as well as the message.

If you hear anything that sounds like these manipulators, stop and reevaluate the situation. Don't ever act quickly and emotionally. Wait and objectively gather the facts so you don't become a hand puppet.

HUSBAND FOUND GUILTY OF WIRETAPPING WIFE'S COMPUTER

Police blotter: Husband spies on wife's computer
By Declan McCullagh -- Staff Writer, CNET News.com

"Police blotter" is a weekly CNET News.com report on the intersection of technology and the law.

What: Reports of home computer wiretapping surface in tempestuous New Jersey divorce case.

When: Superior Court of New Jersey ruled June 8.

Outcome: Wife succeeds in raising her share of the settlement in a divorce case.

What happened, according to court documents:
Peter Garfinkel, 41, asked for a divorce from his wife of six years, Lori Garfinkel, 38, in March 2001. They had separated earlier that month, and Lori remained in the marital home with three children all under 3 years old.

After her husband started court proceedings for a divorce, Lori Garfinkel filed a counterclaim alleging the following: transmission of sexual disease, negligent infliction of emotional distress, intentional infliction of emotional distress and wiretapping.

The wiretapping charges are what make this unfortunate case relevant to Police Blotter. During the trial in state court, the judge dismissed Lori's claims related to sexual disease and emotional distress. But Peter admitted to "wiretapping" Lori's computer.

The description is general: Peter used an unspecified monitoring device to track his wife's computer transactions and record her e-mails. Lori was granted $7,500 on the wiretapping claim.

Overall, though, the trial judge did not find her credible and ruled that she misrepresented her income, assets and expenses. Lori appealed.

A three-judge panel of the Superior Court of New Jersey appeared to side with her. The judges reduced the amount granted to Peter and handed the case back to the trial court for additional proceedings.

This is hardly the first time computer monitoring claims have surfaced in marital spats. As previously reported by CNET News.com, a Florida court ruled last year that a wife who installed spyware on her husband's computer to secretly record evidence of an extramarital affair violated state law.

In addition, makers of keyloggers (hardware or software methods of recording keystrokes) are actively marketing their products as ways to expose spousal wrongdoing. KeyGhost's Web site mentions "multimillion-dollar divorce settlements," and the description of BlazingTools Sofware's Perfect Keylogger includes this line: "Are you wondering if your mate is planning a divorce?"

ORIGINAL ARTICLE HERE