Thief Meets Woman Online, Uses Her for Getaway Car

by Tony Bassett

A mother-of-two had a 'first date from hell' after she was duped into becoming the getaway driver for a thief she met on Facebook.

Leah Gibbs, 23, had planned to spend an evening watching a DVD and getting to know 21-year-old Adam Minton. But instead, when she arrived at his home, he asked her to give him a lift - claiming he briefly had to visit a friend.

She drove him to a shopping area, where he left her for five minutes. When he returned in a panic he ordered her to: "Go, go, go!"

She drove back to his house, but as his personality had changed and he had become rude towards her, she decided the date was over. Just as he was trying to coax her into the house, the police arrived and they were both arrested.

Miss Gibbs was astonished to find police accusing him of robbing a betting shop at knife point, and her of being his accomplice.

She was forced to spend a night in a cell before police accepted her story and she was freed. Minton has now been jailed for four and a half years.

Miss Gibbs, from Tylorstown, South Wales, said: 'I thought I would be ending the night in Adam's arms. Instead, he had landed in the long arms of the law and I was facing jail.

'I'm not a bad person. I was duped. It could have happened to anyone.'

She was only freed when Minton convinced police she had not been involved and knew nothing about the robbery. She added: 'I'm grateful he told the police I knew nothing of the robbery, but still bitter he involved me.'

Minton had worn a black bandana and threatened a cashier with a large kitchen knife. He got away with £250. But the cashier was able to give police the car's registration number which led to the prompt arrests.

Merthyr Crown Court heard last month that Minton first told police he carried out the robbery because of a drug debt. He later claimed he had a gambling problem. The court also heard he had a record for violent offending. The incident is the latest ‘date from hell’ to emerge and follows Twitter users taking to the social media site to speak of their own experiences.

The tales were posted online this week after columnist Rhodri Marsden shared his own disastrous experience at a pub in Clapham.

He wrote on Twitter: 'I've just walked past the Firefly, where I went on a date in 2002 that was so bad I heard myself say "So, what's Wigan like, then?"'

He later explained: 'We had nothing in common, and nothing to say. The silences became excruciating. She was from Wigan, and I actually heard myself saying: "So, what's Wigan like, then?"'

The post led to hundreds of his 17,000 followers telling snippets in up to 140 characters.

UPDATE: DOUG BECKSTEAD - NAILED!

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Technology Makes Stalking Too Easy

Beware of how technology can make it easier to track you
by Aimee Heckel

He e-mailed her a photo of himself holding a gun with a Google map of her house, she says.

He threatened to come to Colorado and rape her.

He threatened her kids, and called her son derogatory names.

That's when Amber decided to get a restraining order, wipe away her entire online presence and start over. Hopefully this time, she says, he won't find her.

But it's hard to erase all virtual footprints, says the 30-something local woman who asked to remain anonymous for her safety. After all, the man whom she accused of cyberstalking her found her address, phone number and boyfriend's e-mail address without her help. All she did was accept him as her Facebook friend; they never met in person, but he seemed friendly as he moderated a Facebook group that she joined.

She will never let a stranger into her life like that again, Amber says.

"I was scared for a minute, honestly, but then I was just pissed off," she says. "He touched a nerve, for sure."

As Americans become increasingly more plugged in, it has become easier for perpetrators to use that technology for nefarious purposes, according to law enforcement. For police, this changing face of partner violence demands innovation and constant training to keep up with the trends. But it can also open up new avenues to trap cyber-perps, and even help tech-savvy victims protect themselves and secure a stronger court case.

The U.S. Department of Justice estimates hundreds of thousands of people have been victims of cyberstalking.

One study found about one-third of college students reported some kind of computer-based harassment, but experts say more research is needed. Plus, harassment can just be a one-time incident, unlike stalking, which generally indicates a pattern of events.

Stalking becomes illegal -- beyond curious browsing through pics or Googling a lost love -- when the repeated contacts are coupled with a credible threat, or when they cause the victim "serious emotional distress."

Officials say cyberstalking cases are extremely underreported. Boulder County doesn't track cyberstalking specifically, but the district attorney's office reported 29 felony stalking arrests last year. Many of them involved technology.

Johnson conducts statewide trainings on tackling cyberstalking. He's considered one of the most computer-savvy DAs across the state.

"A lot of stalking is vested in power and control," Johnson says.

Unlike Amber's case and the high-profile news stories about delusional fans stalking celebs, Johnson says most cyberstalking cases don't involve strangers.

In February, a 37-year-old Boulder man was arrested on suspicion of breaking into his ex-girlfriend's apartment for several months and installing voice recorders in her home and spyware on her computer to monitor her.

One local man, a pilot for Frontier, was accused of stalking a flight attendant coworker, remotely accessing her e-mail, creating fake online personalities and hacking into her work account to learn her flight schedule. He was convicted and is currently serving a one-year sentence with 10 years probation, officials say.

Johnson is currently working on a case involving a City of Longmont employee who was arrested on suspicion of using an online dating site to find women and then stalk them, according to Johnson.

Johnson says the man dropped hints throughout the relationships about his roof-repair skills, and when the relationships went bad, he sabotaged their appliances and drilled holes in their roofs so they'd call him for help.

Johnson says it seems every cyberstalking case involves new and different kinds of technology.

One of the most popular techniques: installing a keystroke logger on a computer or cell phone to record what a person types, including passwords and e-mails. Some software can even turn on cameras and speakers remotely and monitor every phone call.

That's just the beginning.

Tracking devices, or GPSes, are another "favorite way to stalk," Johnson says. In one local case, a stalker bought a wristwatch embedded with a dime-sized GPS unit, designed to help parents keep track of their children. The man removed the device and sewed it into the lining of a woman's coat so he could follow her.

Often, GPS units installed on cars disrupt the vehicle's electrical system. In the past year, Johnson says Boulder County has seen five cases where people brought their cars in for service and the auto shop found a tracker on the car.

Then there are products like Spoofcard.com, a calling card that changes the phone number that shows up on caller ID, changes the caller's voice and records the calls.

From the Web site's testimonials:

"I've used the Spoof caller id when my boyfriend (during that time) was just ignoring my phone calls (even when i blocked my number) he still didn't answer. ... I called my exboyfriend with HIS house phone number and HE HAD ANSWERED the phone call without hesitating!! and he was just tripped out about it. he had thought that i was AT HIS HOUSE!! which i found quite exciting!!"

Although the number of stalking cases in Boulder County is down from 2006, authorities agree stalking isn't on the decline.

Without a doubt, it's increasing, says Tom Eskridge, a partner with the High Tech Crime Institute in Florida, which trains law enforcement and military in digital media investigation and forensics.

"More people are becoming comfortable with technology, and more software is sold under the guise of protecting your children," Eskridge says. "But 99 percent is sold to people who want to spy on the wife."

He says law enforcement has seen an increase in the number of "portal devices" (such as cell phones or laptops with wireless Internet access) seized and examined for civil cases, often involving someone stealing intellectual property from a company.

"The data mining that's available -- you don't have to waste money on LexisNexis anymore. You have Google. You can get most everything you need," Eskridge says. "The days of privacy are over."

A constant race
This leaves police in a constant race with ever-evolving technology. Boulder County has a dedicated unit for computer forensics. Instead of looking for floppy discs and bulky hard drives, investigators now search for thumb-sized SIM cards, MicroSD memory cards, international servers that complicate search warrants and muddle the laws or Internet-based storage, referred to as cloud computing.

"The law doesn't protect you internationally. I put it in the cloud, and you don't know where it's at. Now what are you going to do with your law?" Eskridge says. "There is no supergalactic Internet police."

But in the same way that technology makes it easier for stalkers to track victims, it can help police follow the trail of stalkers. Think back on the different devices that perpetrators use: GPSes, Spoofcards, spyware, fake e-mail addresses and Facebook pages. Police can use all of these, too, says Johnson.

"We're using technology to catch these guys. Although they might be savvy, there's so much on a computer that will trap you," Johnson says.

He refers to a local man was arrested on suspicion of stalking his girlfriend and her teenage daughter. The man was accused of taking compromising photos of the girl through a peephole in her wall, editing the photos to look vulgar and sending them to her friends.

But technology -- a court-ordered tracking device on his car -- ended up catching the man and helping the case against him, Johnson says. The man's sentencing is Sept. 3.

Victims can use technology to protect themselves, too, Johnson says. If you're being harassed, he recommends saving instant messages, e-mails and voice mails. Block calls and e-mails. Turn on your Web cam when you're gone if you think someone is sneaking into your house or installing stuff on your computer. Or pick up a night-vision, motion-activated wildlife camera at a sporting goods store, and mount it to your porch.

The easiest thing to do is change passwords and user names, and pay attention to what you do on your computer.

"If you're surfing online for a restaurant, and then you go and that person is there, make that connection," Johnson says.

The National Network to End Domestic Violence recommends stalking victims use public computers at a library or coffee shop to avoid keystroke-capturing.

And although it might be impossible to prevent, make it more difficult to be stalked, advises Eskridge. Don't put personal info on your Facebook or Twitter, like your birthday, e-mail address or your live location, which just broadcasts that your house is empty.

"You've got people who put so much personal info about themselves, pics of themselves, and some weirdo happens upon your site and falls in love with you. Now, Houston, we've got a problem. And a lot of it is our own doing," Eskridge says. "Let's step back and think: What did we gain by putting that info on the Internet?"

original article here

AND UNFORTUNATELY MANY POLICE, ATTORNEYS, JUDGES, OFFICIALS and OTHERS - do not take this seriously; believe they will 'just go away' and ignore pleas for help. - EOPC

Woman Loses Job Thanks to "Poison EMailer"

by GERRY LOUGHRAN

(U.K.) Poison pen letters used to be a staple of crime fiction. Hand-written but unsigned, they would circulate around a closed community such as a small village, spreading poisonous lies about some innocent person until the writer was unmasked by a clever amateur detective.

Usually the culprit was the vicar’s wife. I thought that sort of thing had died out, both in fiction and, if it existed to any extent, in real life.

I forgot about the Internet. There you can be both anonymous and poisonous, and you don’t even have to pay postage. Claire Chirnside, 23, says she is the victim of a poison emailer, whose lies have already cost her her job.

Back in April, Claire was working as a temporary administrative assistant at a children’s centre in Wilmslow, Cheshire, when an email was sent to her managers claiming she was a con artist and had a criminal past.

The centre launched an internal investigation. Claire was subjected to an enhanced Criminal Records Bureau check and asked to provide a credit report. Nothing detrimental was found and she was cleared to continue work. When the temporary position ended, Claire returned to her native northeast with her fiance, Lee North, and they settled in Northumberland.

Within weeks, she had secured a permanent job at the Royal Institute of British Architects in Newcastle, where she was praised for her customer service skills.

But within two months, the cyber stalker traced her and fired off a vindictive email to her new employers. Claire protested her innocence and explained about the previous incident, but she was sacked anyway.

It happened just three weeks before her planned wedding. “Someone out there is stalking me and spreading these rumours and it’s devastating,” she said.

“For the rest of my life, I am going to wonder if people I work for will get an anonymous email and I will be investigated over and over again.”

Claire said she will appeal against the architects’ decision. “What do I say next time I go for a job? Whoever is doing this could make me unemployable.”

Police in Cheshire and Northumberland confirmed they are carrying out investigations into reports of the anonymous emails.


original article

Ex-Blocker Helps You in the Aftermath

by Amanda Lily

While we used to simply look through old photos or listen to sappy love songs after a break-up, we can now spend hours online, scrolling through old memories, or more importantly, checking up on what new memories our ex may be creating post-"us."

To help eliminate the painful practice of Facebook-stalking the former-love-of-our-lives, creative agency JESS3, with inspiration from "Stuff Hipsters Hate," has developed the "Ex-Blocker" (http://blockyourex.com). This plug-in for Firefox or Chrome essentially erases any trace of our ex (or exes) from the Internet. Simply type in the culprit's first and last name, and your browser will block his or her Facebook and Twitter accounts, as well as eliminate them from your overall www browsing experience.

In case there is more than one skeleton in your closet, you can add up to five exes, thus swearing them off forever ... or at least until you uninstall the software if you guys ever get back together.

Sure, this software seems to imply that none of us have self-control, but in the immediate aftermath of having our hearts broken, it is easy for curiosity to get the best of us. The "Ex-Blocker" can simply play the part of our "digital best friend" and stop us from torturing ourselves with what once was.

original article here

Judge Spares Woman Jail After she Plotted Attack on Internet 'Troll'

Judge spares mother jail after she plotted attack on internet 'troll' who posted horrific comments about disabled daughter


by Chris Greenwood

A mother who joined a revenge attack on a man responsible for a vile campaign of internet abuse against her disabled daughter has been spared prison.

Sylvia Hooper, 52, was described as a ‘decent and law-abiding’ woman who dedicated her life to her seriously ill daughter Kim Arnold. But she snapped after looking on helplessly as a cowardly bully sent her daughter a series of appalling comments via Facebook.

Mrs Hooper faced a jail sentence after identifying Christopher Berwick and confronting him outside his home in Chatham, Kent.

But a judge – who labelled the messages ‘disgraceful and shameful’ – took pity on Mrs Hooper after hearing they were part of a long-term campaign.

The case is the latest evidence of the growing impact of online bullying and abuse through social networking sites. Known as ‘trolling’, it sees abusers, who often hide behind a veil of anonymity or false identities, deluging their victims with cruel taunts. Campaigners have repeatedly called for websites to take swifter action against the ‘trolls’.

Miss Arnold was sent a series of messages via a false Facebook account that left her deeply depressed, Maidstone Crown Court was told. One labelled her a cripple and said that Miss Arnold, who is a wheelchair user, should be left to ‘roll down a hill'.

A judge at Maidstone Crown Court labelled the messages 'shameful' and took pity on Mrs Hooper after hearing they were part of a long-term campaign.

Another message read: ‘Your mother should have had an abortion. She only had you because she felt sorry for you.’

Mrs Hooper realised the culprit was Mr Berwick, who lived nearby, and joined her son Robert and his friend Soloman Taylor outside his home. Mr Hooper, 19, punched Mr Berwick after his mother said ‘hit him’ and the bully was then taken back to the family home by car. He was forced to crawl inside and make a ‘grovelling apology’ to his victim while on all fours. At one point he was hit on the chin with a rolled up newspaper.

Prosecutor Neil Sandys said Mr Berwick originally tried to blame his then girlfriend but eventually admitted being responsible. He said the Facebook exchange was ‘low, mean, base and shameful’ and added that Mr Berwick admitted doing it before.

Mrs Hooper’s solicitor Catharine Donnelly said the comments were ‘beyond the pale’ and told the court ‘none of us would be here today’ without his actions.

Speaking about Mrs Hooper, she said: ‘She is a decent woman who has devoted herself to her daughter. She has led a decent and law-abiding life. It is clear she is a woman who will never trouble these courts again. She was an encourager, rather than a hitter.’

Danny Moore, for Mr Hooper, said Mr Berwick got a kick out of ‘playing mind games with a severely disabled young lady’.

He highlighted how police told the victims there was nothing they could do and the bully was not prosecuted for sending malicious messages.

All three admitted assault but denied false imprisonment and the judge ruled that not guilty verdicts should be entered.

Judge Richard Polden said it ‘troubled him’ that Mrs Hooper had said, ‘hit him’, but accepted that Mr Hooper was acting out of a ‘protective instinct’ to his sister. He said: ‘I sentence you on the basis that Mr Berwick sent messages that were wholly disgraceful and shameful but then tried to put the blame on his girlfriend.’

Mrs Hooper was given a conditional discharge.

The two men were given community orders which included voluntary work.


original article

8,000 Menacing Posts Tests Limits of Twitter Speech

By Somini Sengupta

Even the Buddha of compassion might have been distressed to be on the receiving end of the diatribes that William Lawrence Cassidy is accused of posting on Twitter.

They certainly rattled Alyce Zeoli, a Buddhist leader based in Maryland. Using an ever-changing series of pseudonyms, the authorities say, Mr. Cassidy published thousands of Twitter posts about Ms. Zeoli. Some were weird horror-movie descriptions of what would befall her; others were more along these lines: “Do the world a favor and go kill yourself. P.S. Have a nice day.”

Those relentless tweets landed Mr. Cassidy in jail on charges of online stalking and placed him at the center of an unusual federal case that asks the question: Is posting a public message on Twitter akin to speaking from an old-fashioned soapbox, or can it also be regarded as a means of direct personal communication, like a letter or phone call?

Twitter posts have fueled defamation suits in civil courts worldwide. But this is a criminal case, invoking a somewhat rarely used law on cyberstalking. And it straddles a new, thin line between online communications that can be upsetting — even frightening — and constitutional safeguards on freedom of expression.

Federal authorities say Mr. Cassidy’s Twitter messages caused Ms. Zeoli “substantial emotional distress” and made her fear for her life, so much so that she once did not leave home for 18 months and hired armed guards to protect her residence.

In a complaint filed in federal court in Maryland, the Federal Bureau of Investigation concluded that Mr. Cassidy had published 8,000 Twitter posts, almost all of them about Ms. Zeoli and her Buddhist group, along with similar posts on several blogs.

Mr. Cassidy’s lawyers with the federal public defender’s office argue that even offensive, emotionally distressing speech is protected by the First Amendment when it is conveyed on a public platform like Twitter. Legal scholars say the case is significant because it grapples with what can be said about a person, particularly a public person like a religious leader, versus what can be said to a person.

Eugene Volokh, a law professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, offered an analogy: the difference between harassing telephone calls and ranting from a street-corner pulpit. “When the government restricts speech to one person, the speaker remains free to speak to the public at large,” Mr. Volokh argued.

Certainly Mr. Cassidy’s previous trespasses have not helped him. He has a record of assault, arson and domestic violence. According to the federal complaint, he was also convicted of carrying an unspecified “dangerous weapon” onto a plane in 1993.

But the defense has taken pains to point out that across the Internet, people post things that may cause emotional distress to others: an unkind review of a book on Amazon, even an unvarnished assessment by a college student on RateMyProfessors.com. They point out, moreover, that Mr. Cassidy lived across the country in California and is not accused of getting anywhere close to Ms. Zeoli. He is now in jail in Maryland pending trial.

In support of a defense motion to dismiss the case, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, an advocacy group based in San Francisco, appealed to the court to protect online expression.

“While not all speech is protected by the First Amendment, the idea that the courts must police every inflammatory word spoken online not only chills freedom of speech but is unsupported by decades of First Amendment jurisprudence,” it wrote.

Born in Canarsie, Brooklyn, Ms. Zeoli is considered to be a reincarnated master in the Tibetan Buddhist religious tradition, and is known to her followers as Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo. She is an avid Twitter user, with 23,000 followers. A representative for Ms. Zeoli said she declined to be interviewed for this article.

According to the F.B.I. and Ms. Zeoli’s lawyer, Mr. Cassidy also claimed to be a reincarnated Buddhist when he joined Ms. Zeoli’s organization, Kunzang Palyul Choling, in 2007. He signed up using a false name and claimed to have had lung cancer, they said. Ms. Zeoli’s organization cared for him and, briefly, even appointed him to its executive team. The relationship soured after they came to doubt his reincarnation credentials and found that his claims of cancer were false. Mr. Cassidy left. Then came the relentless tweets, they said.

“A thousand voices call out to (Victim 1) and she cannot shut off the silent scream,” read one in the summer of 2010, as redacted in the criminal complaint.

“Ya like haiku? Here’s one for ya. Long limb, sharp saw, hard drop,” read another.

Shanlon Wu, a former federal prosecutor who is representing Ms. Zeoli, likened the tweets to “handwritten notes.” Every time Ms. Zeoli blocked the messages, more appeared from a different Twitter account. Ms. Zeoli for some time stopped using Twitter altogether.

“She felt constantly attacked and monitored by these anonymous people, and the attacks went on whether or not she was online,” Mr. Wu said by e-mail.

Twitter, in response to a subpoena, revealed the Internet protocol address of the computer used to post the messages. The authorities found Mr. Cassidy at home in a small Southern California town called Lucerne Valley. Similar rants were posted on blogs that law enforcement authorities say they traced to him. Twitter did not respond to a request for comment.

The case is an example of the many ways in which the law is having to wrestle with behavior on new, rapidly changing modes of communication. Similar issues have come up in state courts: a boy who hacked into the Facebook account of an acquaintance was charged with felony identity theft, and a student who bombarded a professor with mean e-mail was accused of disturbing the peace.

“Technology creates new ways for people to interact with each other,” said Eric Goldman, a law professor at Santa Clara University in California. “You have to figure out if old law maps to new interactions.”

Twitter is an especially vexing new tool. It prompts ordinary people who use it to create public personas and it can put celebrities, including religious leaders, in direct contact with a large and sometimes unruly following, including some who insist on using pseudonyms.

“How do you cope with them?” Mr. Goldman wondered aloud. “Do you just block them? Or do you make a federal case out of it?”

original article here

Top 5 Technologies used to Cyberbully

Cyberbullying is a growing problem in the United States and throughout the world. The act of Cyberbullying occurs when individuals use the Internet to harass or embarrass other people.

But what are the tools of cyberbullies that allow them to hold such sway over their peers? The following is a list of five technologies currently employed by cyberbullies to intimidate other kids.

1. MySpace, Facebook and other social networking sites - Currently the leading medium for cyberbullying incidents around the United States, social networking sites have become the instrument of choice for those kids and teens who look to humiliate other young people. These sites provide a means for individuals to post embarrassing photos, conduct mean-spirited online polls and other forms of cyberbullying. Another growing concern in this area is the theft of user IDs and passwords. When one individual steals another’s login information, they can go into their account and make statements in that person’s name. The results can be socially devastating to a teenager or adolescent.

2. Instant messaging - Instant messaging is a staple of major Internet companies such as AOL, Yahoo, Google (through its Gmail service) and MSN. Unfortunately, it is also used as a means of harassment. Many have adopted fake screen names and then used these account to “ping” their enemies with profanity and threats of violence.

3. Email – Email is a relatively anonymous act, especially if an individual goes by a screen name that bears no resemblance to their actual name. Email is used to send threatening letters and images, and can be the delivery device for rumors and falsehoods about an individual. Although many have moved on to social network sites as a means for their cyberbullying, email remains an “old school” way of performing this hateful act.

4. PhotoShop – Surprisingly, the world’s most popular photo editing software is also a device used in many cyberbullying cases. In most cases, one individual will take a photo of another person and alter it so that the victim appears to be in a compromising position, or doing something they should not be doing. Digital camera and camera phones in general have been a problem in Cyberbullying cases – as they give individuals the power to take hidden or unwanted photos of another person, and then spread them instantly across the Internet.

5. Blogs – Many have gone so far as to create entire blogs focusing on their rivals or enemies. These blogs invite user participation via comment posts and create a permanent entity that intimidates the individual in question. Blogs are easy to set up and can be created anonymously, which only serves to make the problem that much worse. With little accountability, the bully is free to let loose a stream of destructive and hurtful language.

ORIGINAL ARTICLE

TO FIND OUT HOW TO IMMEDIATELY DOCUMENT & REPORT A CYBERBULLY - CLICK HERE

Man Violates Court Order & CyberHarasses his Ex

By Andrew Neff

(Maine, U.S.A. ) A Utica, N.Y., man was sentenced to a 41-month prison term in U.S. District Court on Friday for interstate violation of a protection order issued to his ex-wife and her family.

U.S. District Judge John A. Woodcock imposed on Jason P. Fiume, 28, the sentence recommended as part of a plea agreement by Assistant U.S. Attorney James McCarthy, who emphasized an “overwhelming need to dissuade Mr. Fiume from the kind of repeated violations” of protection orders that resulted in a two-count indictment for cyberstalking and interstate violation of a protection order.

Defense and prosecution agreed to a plea deal with a recommendation of a prison term ranging between 33 months to 41.

Woodcock — while sympathetic to defense attorney Virginia Villa’s documentation of Fiume’s childhood, which included physical abuse, the absence of a father and six years in foster care — clearly was concerned about the possibility of Fiume endangering his ex-wife and three children.

Fiume’s attempts to pay child support and receive psychological therapy while incarcerated also failed to keep Woodcock from going with the higher prison term.

“A 183-day imprisonment failed to keep him from continuing to contact [her] and it’s very apparent to me watching [her] speak that she’s terrified of you,” Woodcock told a dispassionate Fiume, who showed no emotion during sentencing or when his ex-wife began shaking and sobbing while telling Woodcock how scared she was of her ex-husband. “I think it was real and she is worried you will hurt or even kill her.”

Fiume, who had served as a U.S. Marine lance corporal, assaulted his wife on Dec. 22, 2009, and was arrested and charged. He pleaded guilty and served a six-month sentence. On June 22, 2010, the sentencing judge in New York issued a protection order that he stay away from his wife and not contact her at all. The next day, Fiume’s ex-wife began receiving constant calls from him. He was arrested again July 27, 2010.

Fiume violated a protection order when he followed his then-wife from New York to her parents’ home in Kennebec County while also sending her a series of threatening text messages and social networking site comments.

Fiume acknowledged his violation while reading a personally written statement to the judge, saying he drove to Maine to leave $300 in child support and pledging to be a father and be there for his children.

“I chose to deal with [her] mental abuse and lashed out rather than walked away,” he said.

The mother of Fiume’s ex-wife then asked for permission to address Woodcock, saying Fiume had no legal rights to his children because of court action and disputing the idea that Fiume had learned his lesson.

“My concern is in cases such as this, the courts are not a good place to litigate personal conflicts,” said Villa. “When no account is taken of the defendant’s efforts at rehabilitation, I think that’s counter to encouraging such efforts because they’re not given any credence or validity.”

Before both legal parties reached a plea deal, Fiume faced a maximum sentence of five years in prison and a maximum fine of $250,000.

Woodcock imposed no fine on Fiume because he could see no obvious means for him to pay a substantial amount, but Fiume did receive an automatic $100 legally mandated fine as part of sentencing.

“I’m going to give [the maximum 41 months in the plea deal’s 33- to 41-month recommendation range] because I think you need that time to be free of each other,” Woodcock added. “I hope you realize you can live your life without her. In freeing [her], you will also free yourself.”

original article here

READERS: is it just us or are there are lot of these sorts of harassment via internet cases popping up frequently as of late?

Internet Harasser Lured into Harassing Police

by John Timmer

(CANADA) A strange case of online harassment, complete with the usual police who would do nothing, may finally be coming to a close. A Montreal citizen who went by the online handle of Dave Mabus has been targeting the atheist and skeptic communities with threats and harassment for years. But Mabus' ability to target his threat was pretty limited (he often went after scientific journalists, including me), and that proved to be his downfall. Some clever Twitter users managed to redirect his rage-filled missives, first to a journalist in his home town of Montreal, and ultimately to the Montreal police department.

The person who goes by the name of Dave Mabus has apparently been at this for a while, as noted atheist PZ Myers claims to have been getting material from him for nearly two decades. Apparently inspired by fervent beliefs in both religion and the prophecies of Nostradamus, Mabus was incensed by the mere existence of atheists and skeptics who raised questions about them, such as Richard Dawkins, James Randi, and Michael Shermer. Starting with e-mail and newsgroups, Mabus sent off angry and vulgar rants to an ever-widening circle of targets. He also moved with the times, adding additional media for his anger: Web discussion boards, various blogs he opened and, eventually, Twitter.

Whatever else this behavior said about his mental state, Mabus did demonstrate impressive patience. As soon as one e-mail service or blog host closed off an account due to complaints of harassment, another would be opened. Evidence from various IP address traces showed he often connected via public computers or open WiFi hotspots scattered around Montreal.

Over time, he broadened his target list to the point of carelessness. "I don't think I ever said anything that directly set him off, in that I am not part of the atheist/skeptic community, which seemed to be his main targets," science writer Maryn McKenna told Ars. "I assume I was just collateral damage for being on the same RT strings as others he was more interested in."

I had largely the same experience, as did writer Carl Zimmer, who shared an archive of some of the e-mails he's received from Mabus over the years.

Many of these were simply vulgar rants against anyone who promoted atheism or questioned Nostradamus. But there are a number that clearly imply a threat: "Kicking in the heads of atheists one at a time...," "now we are going to bury you...," "we're this far from nuking all of you...." But many of the recipients also reported obvious threats to themselves and their families. More worrying still, the Atheist Alliance International held its convention in Montreal in 2010, a move that sparked this response from Mabus, found in one of Zimmer's e-mails: "NEW GAME WITH YOU LITTLE F*CKERS - SPEAK N DIE." And then, reportedly, Mabus' real-life counterpart did show up at the meeting.

Many others have suggested Mabus' imagery grew increasingly unnerving. "Whether he would ever get violent, I don't know," Zimmer said. "But he was a disturbing figure in many people's lives."

Behind the pseudonym
Despite his frequent use of anonymous services and public access points, Mabus apparently wasn't all that careful about concealing his identity, which is how people could tell that he had had shown up to the convention. Several of the e-mails he sent included a name in the return address: Dennis Markuze. IP addresses led to Montreal, and checks of the Montreal phone directory revealed there were only a few numbers listed with that last name. With his targets getting increasingly worried about the threats they were receiving, people started filing complaints with various law enforcement agencies, including the Montreal Police.

And, as far as anyone could tell, the complaints went nowhere. The local authorities weren't interested in acting, and most of Mabus' targets didn't even live in Canada. That eventually changed, in part due to Mabus' lack of discretion when it came to choosing his targets. One of Zimmer's tweets apparently caught the attention of William Raillant-Clark, who handles press for the University of Montreal. Calling the inaction "unacceptable," Ralliant-Clark began investigating the story and placed his results on Tumblr; he also included the Montreal Police's press account on Twitter in some of the conversation.

Here's where Mabus' thoroughness backfired. Noticing the Twitter conversation between Ralliant-Clark and his former victims, he added the journalist to his target list. And, since the Montreal police's Twitter account was also mentioned, it got a copy too. Mabus actually started sending diatribes to the local police force.

At the same time, someone named Kyle VanderBeek also became a target of Mabus' attack. The organization he works for, change.org, has an online petition system. VanderBeek set one up that asked the Montreal police to end the harassment; the system sent an e-mail to the police with each signature. By this time last week, the Montreal police had launched an investigation and were asking for the e-mails to stop, while Ralliant-Clark was being interviewed on TV. Later that evening, the latest Mabus Twitter account started issuing apologies.

By Tuesday, the police announced that they had arrested a suspect in this case. The Canadian judicial system will now decide whether his frequent threats require some sort of formal intervention.

Unfortunately, it took years of abuse and threats before anything was done; in the meantime, a larger number of people have been targeted by his threats, wasted time blocking his screeds, or had their conversations disrupted by his rants. The only consolation is that the same personality trait that allowed him to be disruptive—his indifference to the targets of his harassment—finally led him to target the Montreal police.

original article here

Wife Traumatised by Husband's Harassment

(U.K.) Fireman Ben Walker began a campaign of harassment against his estranged wife just hours after being convicted of violently assaulting her. The violent thug was convicted of punching, kicking, throttling and even holding a power drill to the stomach of Amanda in May. But the abuse did not stop after he was convicted of assault by beating and common assault.

Newcastle Magistrates’ Court heard the “obsessed and intimidating” former crew manager at Gateshead East Community Fire Station bombarded his wife with text messages leaving her “suicidal”.

Walker, 31, who has been living at his father’s house in Staffordshire since moving out of the High Heaton home the couple shared, pleaded guilty to harassment and said afterwards he hoped he could now “start his life again”.

Prosecutor Rebecca Gibson said Walker’s “vile campaign of harassment” against his wife who he met on the internet and married after a six-month romance, had started the same day he was convicted and quickly escalated.

“The Crown requested a restraining order but the defence claimed that it wasn’t necessary because Walker accepted that the marriage was over and he was going to move away,” she said.

“But since that day he has sent her over 100 text messages.”

Magistrates heard that on May 8 Walker went to his former marital home, on Southlands, and persistently banged on the door for over half an hour. When his wife didn’t answer, he waited until she left the house and then followed her and prevented her from getting out of the car.

The court also heard a Facebook page was also set up to support Walker, with 220 members, on which many “vile and threatening comments” were posted.

Ms Gibson said Amanda was “traumatised” by what had happened and that she has gone from a “happy, highly confident individual to a physical wreck”. She said: “Her peace of mind has gone, she feels a prisoner in her own home and is scared to answer the phone or socialise with friends as she fears retaliations. She has had substantial time off work due to stress and her job is at risk.

“Her faith in men has been shattered and she can’t start relationships. It’s turned her world upside down and she can’t sleep. It is an ever present worry. She will spend the rest of her life wondering if she is at risk. She is under the long-term care of her GP and at her lowest she felt suicidal.”

When arrested Walker admitted sending texts with the aim of reconciling the relationship. Denise Jackman, defending Walker, said her client had misunderstood an instruction to send future legal letters directly to Amanda as a sign she was contemplating reconciliation.

“Walker thought it was her way of wanting to sort things out,” she said. “He accepts he texted her but nobody has seen all of these 100 texts. He knows the position he’s in.

Ms Jackman added: “He met this lady and then his life went down the pan. He accepts his marriage is at an end.”

Walker was handed a 24-month community order, with supervision, and 66 hours unpaid work. He was also slapped with a two-year restraining order with conditions not to contact Amanda Walker unless through his solicitor.

Speaking outside court after the hearing last week, Walker said he wanted to put his “disastrous” marriage behind him. He added: “I’m very sorry to be leaving the North East.”

original article here

Another Online Dating Nightmare

(Eastbourne, U.K.) A widow who was looking for love on the internet has hit out at the courts after a man who conned her and broke into her home escaped jail.

Amanda Avery criticised the legal system this week after hearing that Colin Bradish – a man who she says made her life hell – was handed a 50-week suspended sentence for burglary and harassment.

Bradish, 53, of Portslade, was also made subject of a restraining order banning him from contacting Ms Avery. However, according to his 43-year-old victim, he was still signed up to a host of other dating websites – leaving other women potentially at risk of being targeted.

Ms Avery, of East Dean, said the punishment should have been far more severe. Speaking to the Herald about her ordeal, she said, “You rely on the justice system and I feel let down by it. It is as if he has not even been punished for what he did.”

Having wormed his way into her affections, Bradish proceeded to break in, steal a laptop and set about hacking into a host of Ms Avery’s personal accounts.

And, as well as changing her mobile phone tariff and messing with other files, Bradish signed her up for a string of other dating websites and advertised her home address.

Ms Avery was devastated but, as she explained, the internet side of things was far from the most upsetting.

“The worst thing was,” she said, “that he came into my room and took my mobile phone from next to my bed. He would have been yards from where I was sleeping. For ages I had could not sleep because of the thought and used lay awake until it became light.”

Bradish was the first person Ms Avery had met online. In fact, she had only ended up on the dating website by accident after filling in an internet personality test and being told she had to sign up to get the results.

A day later, she was contacted by Bradish and he began spinning his web of lies.

“He photoshopped his picture,” remembered Ms Avery. “He is a good deal uglier in real life.”

“You won’t believe this but he had actually asked me if my photo was a current one because he said people often used one of themselves younger. When I saw him I thought ‘you’ve aged a bit’ but looks have never been the most important thing to me. He seemed nice and could hold an intelligent conversation.”

Ms Avery, who said she always tried to see the good in people but had been left feeling ‘a bit stupid’ after falling for Bradish’s carefully concocted deceit, did not rush into meeting her online date.

The pair exchanged messages and spoke at length on the phone before she decided to take the plunge and meet up. Now, having seen her home broken into and her trust shattered, she understandably wishes she had never met him.

“He was trying to control me,” She said. “He had nothing going on in his life. He had made up a fake job and all the rest of it. This was probably the only way he had of getting control.”

Although she slammed the courts for delivering such a lenient sentence, she reserved special praise for the police.

“You get idiots everywhere,” she said. “The internet is just another place for them."


original article here

10 Internet Daters Die After Flying to Africa with Money

By Adam Boulton

Families fear victims have been poisoned by gang
'Bride' claims new husband became ill and died

Ten men who emptied their bank accounts and flew to Africa hoping to marry women they had met on the internet have died suddenly.

The victims, who did not know each other, all flew to Yaounde, the capital of Cameroon, after falling in love with local women online.

Their families in Belgium later received phone calls from Cameroon in which a sobbing woman told them their relatives had died from a mysterious illness.

Belgian police suspect the men were tricked out of the money they took with them to start new lives with their 'brides' before being poisoned by fraudsters.

One of the victims was named yesterday as Mikael Pietquin, 30, from Brussels, who vanished after falling in love with a woman nicknamed the African Bomb. His father has told police his son phoned home before he disappeared to say his future bride had made him eat a 'love plant' to improve his sexual performance.

'We heard nothing more until the sobbing woman phoned us and said: "Mikael is dead",' the father said yesterday.

'The bride said my son was sick when he arrived and took an overdose of medicine from Belgium. We did not believe her.'

Another victim was reported to be a former Belgian airline pilot from Hastiere in Southern Belgium.

original article here

Blogger Fights for First Amendment Rights

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Spotting the Internet Liar

How can you spot a liar online? Some telltale signs of online deception from Cornell professor of Communication -- Jeff Hancock.

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The Internet & the First Amendment

INSIDE THE FIRST AMENDMENT
By Gene Policinski

When the poetic line “Oh what a tangled web we weave …” was penned a few centuries ago, Sir Walter Scott had no idea what irony those words might have when applied to the 21st century’s world of blogs, tweets, Web sites and free expression.

Over just a few days in the last two weeks, these tangled issues were making news:

In Virginia, a woman blogged about the actions of undercover police operations, which she said fascinated her. Her last entry read, “they’re here” – typed, it was reported, just before her arrest for harassment of a police officer.

In New York, a Web site that claimed officials were considering an end to Radio City’s long-standing Christmas spectacular has been sued for defamation by Madison Square Garden; and a real estate developer sued a Web site for publishing court documents, claiming it was done to hurt his business.

In South Carolina, a man was charged with the rarely used offense of criminal libel in connection with inflammatory messages about another man on social-networking sites.

In Washington, D.C., the U.S. military announced it would review policies applying to social networks like Facebook, Twitter and MySpace, with an eye toward security concerns. The Marine Corps went further, ordering a ban on use of the Marine Web network for such activity, though stopping short – for now – of regulating Marines’ private use of such networks on personal computers outside of their jobs.

What all of these news items have in common is that such speech would have had limited reach not that long ago. But the Internet provides the means and opportunity to reach well beyond friends and family, and in doing so increases the potential consequences. And what are the potential consequences for free speakers in an Internet age?

Well, there’s that Virginia prosecution related to detailing undercover police moves. In Maryland a Web-site operator is being sued under a belief that he posted an anonymous, unsupported comment claiming a public official was a sexual predator.

The Web site NaplesNews.com reports that two men in Florida face five years in state prison for what authorities considered gang-related content on their Web pages – the first prosecutions under a state law passed last year that makes it illegal to use electronic media to “promote” gangs. Both men say the law violates First Amendment rights – in this case, both speech and assembly.

These instances and a slew of disciplinary and defamation flaps in recent years involving student postings on the Web are bringing out new issues and prompting new laws that define First Amendment rights in the 21st century.

A First Amendment Center colleague often notes that “new media” have always invited new regulation. Books tested boundaries and created generations of censors. Movies and even comic books prompted what now are seen by many as excessive and even eccentric codes governing what could be shown or drawn. As a nation, we imposed a “fairness doctrine” on television, realizing only later that it was decreasing discussion on issues rather living up to its name.

The 45 words declaring the protected freedoms of the First Amendment have stood unrevised since 1791. And not that long ago, the Internet was being hailed as the greatest means of interpersonal communication that ever existed. But in little more than a decade, we’re deep into a time when casual comments suddenly have worldwide echoes, and we’re redefining what a “scrawl on the wall” really means. In the process, will we chill real dialogue that may include offensive, irritating or challenging words?

There’s no doubt that criminal actions, defamation, true threats and a host of other evils do exist in our society and must be dealt with. But the challenge ahead is also to limit the limits, not just restrain the speech.

Gene Policinski is vice president and executive director of the First Amendment Center, 555 Pennsylvania Ave., Washington, D.C., 20001.
Web: http://www.firstamendmentcenter.org

Original Article Here

LATEST INTERNET FIRST AMENDMENT CASE IN THE NEWS - CLICK HERE

Search for Suspect Who Sent Topless Pics to Woman's Office

(FLORIDA, U.S.A.) A woman who works at a Bonita Springs medical practice told Lee deputies she arrived to work Monday and found four facsimiles in the machine – of a picture she took of herself topless.

The woman, whose name and other information was not released, said the photo was the same one contained on her home computer that she took after she’d lost some weight, according to a Lee County Sheriff’s Office report. She never sent the photos to anyone, she told deputies.

She believes a man who wants to date her is responsible for hacking into her computer. She doesn’t want anything to do with the man, according to the report.

She does not know where the man lives, but told deputies where he works.

Deputies are investigating the incident as a cyber stalking complaint.


original article here