130 Facebook pages to Harass - E-Impersonation

(U.S.)  Prosecutors say a Los Angeles man created 130 phony Facebook pages and posted Craigslist profiles to harass his 16-year-old ex-girlfriend.

The Los Angeles city attorney's office says 22-year-old Jesus Felix pleaded no contest on Wednesday to two counts of violating California's new impersonation law and one count of making harassing telephone calls.

He was placed on five years' probation and ordered to perform 30 days of road-crew community service. A one-year jail sentence was suspended on condition he complete anger management and sex therapy classes.

Prosecutors say in a news release that Felix created Facebook pages and Craigslist listings using photos of his ex-girlfriend. The girl's mother discovered online profiles with her daughter's contact information as well as sexually explicit photos.

The Internet impersonation law went in effect Jan. 1.

original article found here

HOW TO MAKE E-IMPERSONATION A CRIME IN YOUR STATE? CLICK HERE

Warning About E-Personation Bill

By Edward Berridge

Online Human Rights Group the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has warned that a bill working its way through the California legislature will make it a crime to impersonate someone online in order to "harm" that person.

The law will make it illegal to create a Facebook or Twitter account with someone else's name, and then use that account to embarrass that person.

The EFF said that "impersonating" corporations and public officials has become an important and powerful form of political activism, especially online."

"For example, the Yes Men, a group of artists and activists, pioneered "identity correction," posing as business and government representatives and making statements on their behalf to raise popular awareness of the real effects of those entities' activities, like the failure to DuPont to adequately compensate victims of the Bhopal disaster and the U.S. government's destruction of public housing units in New Orleans," the EFF said.

Last year, the activists staged a thinly veiled hoax by presenting themselves at a press conference and on a website as the Chamber of Commerce and promised to stop lobbying against strong climate change legislation. The Chamber promptly sued the Yes Men based on a trademark complaint.

Spoof sites and "identity correction" raise awareness about community issues, environmental threats and, most recently, the historical roots of Haiti's economic problems, the EFF said.

The people behind the bill said that there is nothing to worry about as it only applies to "credible" impersonations. They claimed that at the moment victims of online harassment and defamation have little legal recourse.

However the EFF replied that laws against fraud and defamation are already on the books, and they apply online as well as offline.

original article here

NOTE: THIS BILL PASSED IN CALIFORNIA and NEW YORK
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Laws Protect the Harassers!

by James Temple

In the summer of 2009, Carla Franklin landed on a Facebook page created under her name.

She was shocked to see her own image staring back, a swimsuit photo from her earlier days as a model.

Worse yet, Franklin also found a YouTube channel dedicated to her, featuring a student film she had acted in years before. The page labeled her a prostitute and listed her contact information.

Franklin immediately suspected that the cyber bully posting the material was a man she went on a few dates with three years earlier. But it took months to get the companies to remove the content and a court order to force Google to provide the information necessary to link him to the posts. Three years later, she's still in the process of completing the case.

Franklin's experience highlights the long legal battle in store for most people seeking to unmask online harassers, and remove intimate, hateful or defamatory material from the Internet. It also underscores the tension between the rights of harassment victims and the rights of websites, which were granted broad immunity from the actions of their users through legislation that protects free expression online.

These challenges and frictions will be the subject of a panel discussion in San Francisco, during a fundraiser for Without My Consent, a nonprofit that helps to educate harassment victims and their attorneys on legal options.

Franklin, who now acts as an advocate on these issues, will appear on the panel, along with experts from Twitter, Reputation.com, the California attorney general's office and elsewhere.

Traumatic results

The exact scope of online harassment is unknown, but it's clearly widespread.

University of Maryland law Professor Danielle Citron noted in a recent blog post that the Bureau of Justice Statistics estimated that "850,000 people in 2006 experienced stalking with a significant online component," while other researchers predict that 30 percent of Internet users will "face some form of cyber harassment in their lives."

It can take many forms, including hate speech, threats of rape and sexual violence, and posting of nude or doctored images. The threat of uploading intimate pictures and videos is sometimes used to blackmail victims for sex or money.

The results can be traumatic and tragic, as exemplified by the case of Tyler Clementi. In 2010, the 18-year-old Rutgers student killed himself after his roommate hid a webcam in their room and streamed video online of his sexual encounter with another man. Between the Communications Decency Act and the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, online companies enjoy broad protection from legal liability for the content created or posted by users, be it copyrighted or defamatory.

These laws basically ensure that companies like Craigslist, Twitter and Facebook can host open forums where people can freely trade ideas and goods. But they also mean that victims of legitimate harassment face a gauntlet of challenges in getting material removed and identifying those responsible.

Costly litigation

It costs at least $10,000 in legal fees to issue a subpoena to an online company demanding the IP address that links a real person to an uploaded file, said Colette Vogele, co-founder of Without My Consent. It costs thousands more to file a lawsuit against the perpetrator.

Depending on the facts of the case and the state involved, the victim might be able to sue the person for defamation, publication of private facts, breach of confidence and other claims. Some acts can rise to the level of criminal offenses, including stalking and extortion.

There are risks in filing a lawsuit, however, as Franklin learned all too well. After she sued Google, she found her name and the details of her case splashed in the New York Post and New York Daily News, which dubbed the Duke and Columbia graduate a "brainy ex-model." Bloggers and commenters were far nastier.

Victim advocates like Vogele argue it should be much easier for victims to pursue remedies. Among other things, they believe more of the offenses should be considered crimes, it should be simpler to sue under a pseudonym, and courts should demand greater cooperation from websites.

"Courts can apply (the Communications Decency Act) in a less overzealous way," Vogele said. "We need to apply it in a way that doesn't protect speech that is harmful."

Protecting speech

On that question, however, many free speech advocates disagree. It should be difficult to unmask anonymous commenters and remove online material because those hurdles protect free speech, said Matt Zimmerman, senior staff attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

If sites were required to respond to harassment claims that hadn't been evaluated by a judge, many would simply remove material by rote. They wouldn't spend the time and money to determine whether someone was legitimately harassed or just meanly criticized, nor would they be particularly qualified to make that call.

Current law "protects channels of speech but still allows people to pursue claims against the bad actors," Zimmerman said. "Yes, it costs you something to pursue your claims, but that's the social deal we've made."

As it is, some courts have applied too lenient a standard in certain cases, he and others say. Notably, in 2009, a New York judge required Google to reveal the name of an anonymous blogger who had called model Liskula Cohen a "skank" and "ho."

Here the critical question becomes: Is labeling someone a "ho" equivalent to describing someone as a prostitute - a factual claim that could be libelous if false - or is it, in common use, a generic criticism?

Or to paraphrase Zimmerman: Would a reasonable reader of the blog go away thinking, "Wow, I didn't realize Cohen had sex for money," or would they assume it was a crudely stated personal opinion?

As much as the blogger's actions were distasteful, the courts shouldn't serve as a "tax-subsidized private investigator" for celebrities, politicians or anyone else who wants to out and silence their critics, he said.

'I try to forget'

On the other hand, it's difficult to feel the law has struck the entirely correct balance when you hear a story like J's. The California woman (who didn't want her name used) made one mistake a decade ago that continues to haunt her.

She agreed to make a sex tape with her boyfriend at the time, with the understanding that it would be kept private. Instead, years after they broke up, it appeared online, edited to look like the debut film of a porn actress. Her real name was used.

With Vogele's help, J sued the man, winning monetary damages along with a requirement that he assist in the ongoing removal of the video and pictures online.

But the legal effort took years and the images had spread so widely by then that they continue to resurface. Her husband regularly searches for new appearances and sends take-down requests to sites. J, who has been contacted by strangers who have viewed the video, continues to screen calls and avoid social media.

"I try to forget, I try to pretend it never happened, but I know it will always be there," she said. "It's a nightmare that will always keep following me."

For more information, or for more on legal options for victims of cyber harassment, go to withoutmyconsent.org.

original article here

NOTE: EOPC is not guilty of any above. We have signed legal releases for our stories. They can ONLY be removed by the written request of the person(s) who submitted them for posted. We are not liable for opinion statements. We are not personally involved in any of our exposes. All other articles are covered under the FAIR USE DOCTRINE. Great care has been taken to legally comply with information on this sort of website. Complaints about exposes must go to the person(s) who submitted them.

Malicious Exes - More Horrible in the Internet Age

by Kashmir Hill

After a break-up, it’s natural to feel hurt and angry. Hopefully you and your ex are able to vent those painful emotions by talking to friends, eating copious amounts of ice cream, taking up new hobbies, spending hours at the gym to negate the ice cream eating, and/or meticulously cutting each other out of one another’s digital lives through de-friending, deletion and detagging. Let’s hope your ex finds a healthy way to deal with his pain and doesn’t decide to go down the dark path taken by Shawn Sayer of Maine. After he and his girlfriend split in 2006, he harassed her for years, notably by crowd-sourcing his revenge. A court order from Judge Brock Hornby describes how he kept up his harassment after his ex moved to a new state in 2009:

[A]fter Sayer’s former girlfriend changed her name and moved from Maine to Louisiana to escape him, the defendant Sayer, still in Maine, created fictitious internet advertisements and social media profiles using [the victim's] name and other identifying information. The fictitious internet postings included [the victim's] address and invited men to come to her home for sexual encounters.

He wasn’t doing this to help her meet new people and start afresh. According to The Courier, these postings were in the “casual encounters” section of Craigslist, and included a photo of Sayer’s ex, “directions to her house and a list of sexual things she would do when interested individuals arrived.” Sayer didn’t stop there. According to the court order, he also “engaged in chats and e-mails with prospective sexual partners, while posing as his ex-girlfriend.” And you thought your ex was bad…

Sayer avoided getting caught, reported the Portland Press Herald in 2010, by “connecting to unsecured wireless networks at different locations… That way, when police issued subpoenas for Internet records after a fake personal ad was posted, the trail dead-ended at the owner of the wireless network.” From the court document:

The Defendant also posted video clips to several adult pornography websites depicting sexual acts [the victim] had consensually performed with him during their relationship. The Defendant edited the clips so they also displayed [the victim's] name and actual address. As a result of the Defendant’s actions, numerous men arrived at [the victim's] Louisiana residence seeking sexual encounters, terrifying her and causing her to fear that she would be raped or assaulted.

Luckily, Sayer’s ex was not assaulted (though she was groped one time). Another woman subject to this sort of treatment by an ex was not so lucky. A spurned former Marine took revenge on his ex-girlfriend by posting a “rape fantasy ad” to Craigslist on her behalf. A 27-year-old Wyoming man answered the ad for “a real aggressive man with no concern for woman.” Thinking he was corresponding with her (rather than her ex), he thought he had her consent when he went to her home and raped her. (Eek!) Both the ex and the fantasy fulfiller were sentenced to 60 years in prison in that case.

Since Sayer’s ex was not ultimately attacked, Sayer got off a little easier. Law enforcement finally tracked him down by getting their hands on surveillance video taken in areas where he connected to wireless networks that didn’t require passwords. In 2010, he was sentenced to 22 months for violating a protective order. But prosecutors also want to go after him for the federal crimes of interstate cyberstalking and identity theft (because he posted social media profiles posing as his ex).

Sayer tried to get the cyberstalking charge dismissed, pointing to a recent case that established our constitutional right to harass people on Twitter, which privileged a cyberstalker William Lawrence Cassidy’s right to free speech over a Buddhist leader Alyce Zeoli’s right to be free from harassment. Cassidy had criticized Zeoli’s looks, criticized Buddhism, described cinematic ways that Zeoli could die, and told her to commit suicide. A judge ruled that Zeoli was a public figure and that she could have avoided harassment by simply not looking at Cassidy’s tweets.

The judge in the Sayer case doesn’t think the cases are comparable, though, because Zeoli was a public figure (while Sayer’s ex is not) and because he was simply harassing his ex, not exercising speech worth protecting.

“What Sayer is alleged to have done involves no political or religious speech or the promotion of ideas of any sort,” writes Judge Hornby. “Instead, everything that Sayer allegedly said was ‘integral to criminal conduct,’ his criminal conduct seeking to injure, harass or cause substantial emotional distress to the victim.”

Thus, Sayer’s federal case will move forward. If convicted, he faces up to 15 years in prison.

My friends, try not to let ‘obsessing’ over your ex enter criminal territory.

H/T Eric Goldman

original article found here

Scorned Man Sends Bomb Threat and Makes it Appear Estranged Wife Sent It!

A scorned husband who tried to get his estranged wife arrested by emailing MI5 and claiming she had planted a bomb at a junior school was jailed for 16 months today.

Crazed Ghulam Kibria, 33, caused panic after he sent a chilling bomb threat to the security service’s website. He pretended to be his wife when he clicked on the MI5 'contact us' section of the site and wrote: 'There is a bomb planted in Prince Albert Junior and Infant School in Aston. There is nothing you can do - we can strike anytime, anywhere.'

Anti-terror police evacuated all 700 pupils and 110 staff at the school in Birmingham just seven minutes after receiving the email on November 8 last year.

Kibria was jailed for 16 months after he pleaded guilty to communicating a bomb hoax. Sentencing him at Birmingham Crown Court Judge John Maxwell said: 'The motive, we can be quite clear, was not to disrupt the school, to disrupt the neighbourhood, the motive was one of malice against the ex-wife to get her into trouble.

'You lived a perfectly respectable life until your life was turned upside down by an extremely unhappy marriage. You genuinely believe that your wife has committed great evil against you and so is the depth of your belief in that it has pushed you into a mental illness. You decided to get revenge against your ex-wife and you decided to issue a bomb hoax in her name and the motive simply that you were trying to get her arrested. It caused great fear. There was nothing short of panic. It was an offence that was inspired by malice and revenge.'

Kibria sent the email, which included the name and address of his ex-wife, to MI5 at 1.53pm. By 2pm all staff and pupils had been evacuated and police put a 100m exclusion zone around the school after the threat was taken 'considerably seriously' by MI5, the court heard. Children as young as three were carried outside in the freezing temperatures after the evacuation came while pupils changed for a PE lesson.

The court heard a 100-metre police cordon was set up around the school following the threat and two search teams of six officers in each were deployed to the school, along with an explosive detection dog and handler. Anti-terrorism officers swooped on Kibria’s ex-wife’s home who denied sending the threat. Officers arrested Kibria in Lidget Green, Bradford and seized his laptop which proved he had sent the message to MI5.

Kathryn Roughton, prosecuting, told the court, Kibria harboured a 'very profound and deep seated sense of resentment' towards his ex-wife. Regan Beggs, defending, said Kibria had suffered psychiatric difficulties but was not on medication when he sent the email.

Speaking after the hearing, Detective Inspector Neil Corrigan said: 'We take hoax bomb reports very seriously and will always work to bring offenders before the courts. 'Kibria’s actions wasted a significant amount of police time and resources, and could have taken officers away from more urgent matters. It also caused considerable inconvenience to teachers, pupils and parents at the school. We hope the fact that Kibria has been given a custodial sentence will act as a warning to others not to act so irresponsibly.'

original article found here

Jailed Over Online Blog Post

By T.J. Aulds

(TEXAS) The operator of a popular blog that keeps up with the happenings in Clear Lake Shores was arrested and charged because of a post he made on the site in February.

Allan Batchelor, owner of the Island Drumz blog, said his posting of the email address of the wife of a city council candidate is what got him in trouble.

Interim police Chief Kenneth Cook said Batchelor was charged with online impersonation, a Class A misdemeanor. Batchelor was arrested at his home Wednesday and posted a $2,500 bond.

Online impersonation is the state’s definition of online harassment.

Section 33.07 of the state penal code defines the infraction as, “A person commits an offense if the person, without obtaining the other person’s consent and with the intent to harm, defraud, intimidate or threaten any person, uses the name or persona of another person ... with the intent to harm or defraud any person.”

The Texas Legislature revised the law last session.

In Batchelor’s case, he’s accused of posting the email address of Barbara Nichols, wife of city council candidate John Nichols, and inviting people to send spam and computer viruses to the email.

“Harm was intended at that point,” Cook said.

Batchelor made the posting on his blog Feb. 21. Nichols filed a complaint March 16.

Cook, noting a tense political atmosphere in the city, said his office took the case to the Galveston County District Attorney’s Office, which agreed to press charges. The Clear Lake Shores City Council has been locked in disagreement mostly about the performance of City Administrator Paul Shelly, who, until recently, also was police chief.

Batchelor said he made the post, which has since been edited to delete Nichols’ email address, because he was upset she had used an email distribution list of his to send out emails to area residents and businesses.

Nichols, who confirmed she got the distribution list from Batchelor, said the email contained the council agenda packet and she sent it to make sure the public was aware of an approaching council meeting.

She also said she was unaware Batchelor had posted his spam comments and her email to his blog. That was until the spam started showing up in her inbox.

Spam is unsolicited email, usually promoting a commercial product or service.

“I got spammed,” she said. “I opened my email and had all this spam.”

Nichols also said she found out she was under attack by posters on the Island Drumz blog page.

“I am uncomfortable with being attacked,” she said. “It got to the point that disagreements are not civil anymore. They come with threats, and I am fearful for what could happen to me.”

Nichols said she suspects she became an online target because she questions how the city was handling federal government contracts for disaster relief funds.

“I was arguing for more transparency,” she said. “Then I was attacked. I feel like this hate mongering is parallel to bullying that we tell our kids not to do. That’s what it is, a lot of bullying.”

original post found here

Men Show Up Wanting Sex After 'Ex Posted Fake Craigslist ads'

By Mark Duell

(U.S.A.) A jilted boyfriend allegedly placed a series of fake adverts on Craigslist that appeared to be from his pregnant ex-girlfriend asking men for sex.

Andre Flom, 31, of Portland, Oregon, put up ads with her number and address - and up to 20 men would arrive at her home for sex, police said.

Postings under the name of Catlin Moser, 29, said ‘hit me up - I’m super horny’ and that she wanted ‘guys to take turns giving it to me good’.

The posts also asked people to remove a Japanese maple tree and a play structure from her garden, reported the Smoking Gun website.

‘He was posting my name, my phone number and my address on Craigslist for really obscene sex parties,’ Ms Moser told Fox affiliate KPTV. I was having men showing up at my house all hours of the night.'

He even allegedly posted the contact details of Ms Moser’s mother, who said she would get around 100 obscene text messages in five minutes. ‘The kinds of things that were being said were pretty obscene,’ the mother told CBS affiliate KVAL. ‘He'd set up times for them to come over.’

CONTENT OF THREE ADS ON CRAIGLIST

'What's up, my name's Catlin and I’m very real, looking for a sexy guy to come give me what I need, hit me up - I'm super horny'

'Having a party tonight at my house: encourage single guys to come through, lots of beer and single women, here is a recent pic of me, my name's Catlin, let's go boys'

'Hey, so I'm at home bored, lookin for a guy, or guys to take turns givin it to me good'

It began in October after Flom was convicted of domestic violence and more than 35 adverts were posted on the listings website, police said. Flom was convicted of strangling Ms Moser, who has a two-year-old son, last autumn and she won a restraining order against him.

One of the ads included her address, saying: ‘I’m very real, looking for a sexy guy to come give me what I need, hit me up - I’m super horny’. Another said she was ‘sitting at home bored’ wanting men to ‘give it to me good’ and was inviting people who ‘want to get a little dirty’.

Investigators subpoenaed Craigslist to give them records that showed nearly all of the fake adverts came from the same network location.

In a twist, investigators traced this to Flom’s next-door neighbour. But it turned out the man had an unsecured wireless router in his house. Police raided Flom’s home on Tuesday and took away a computer, modem and mobile phones, reported the Smoking Gun.

Flom was charged with computer crime and identity theft and is being held in Multnomah County jail in lieu of posting a $30,000 bond.

original article here

Bill Targets Cyber-Impersonation

by Alejandro Martínez-Cabrera

Two months ago, a San Jose Mercury News reporter received a profanity-laced e-mail critical of one of her stories. More than a year before, a similar e-mail was sent to a long mailing list of hundreds of Silicon Valley industry, labor, political and community leaders.

The sender of the e-mails appeared to be Carl Guardino, the chief executive of the Silicon Valley Leadership Group, which represents the high-tech industry. The problem: He didn't actually send it.

"This absolutely misrepresented me in a very harmful way," he said. "It was completely out of character and it depicted me in a very bad light."

Guardino was the victim of online impersonation, and he soon found out he wasn't alone - friends, colleagues and relatives had stories of usurped identities and tarnished reputations. Unfortunately for them, the state law on impersonation was written in 1872 and is not equipped to deal with the digital age.

But a bill making its way through the Legislature is looking to change that. Inspired by Guardino's story, state Sen. Joe Simitian, D-Palo Alto, introduced a bill in June that would make it a misdemeanor to maliciously impersonate someone.

If Simitian's bill passes, online impersonations with the purpose "of harming, intimidating, threatening or defrauding" would be punishable with a maximum fine of $1,000 and one year in jail.

But while supporters believe the law urgently needs to be updated to punish and deter malicious impersonators, privacy advocates worry that such legislation might easily cross the line and threaten people's First Amendment rights.
Political commentary

Simitian said his bill is not going after those who create fake Barack Obama Facebook profiles for political commentary, or the likes of Fake Steve Jobs, Newsweek writer Daniel Lyons who poses as Apple's chief executive in his satirical blog.

Instead, the bill is meant to deal with miscreants whose impersonations range from the naughty to the outright sinister.

In recent years, impersonators have tweeted under the names of Maya Angelou, Kanye West and St. Louis Cardinals' manager Tony La Russa, to name a few. Revenge-seekers and pranksters have embarrassed their victims in front of potential employers and created smears that are difficult to remove from the Web. Students have posed as teachers to harass other kids.

In one case in December, a Wyoming woman was raped in her home by a man responding to a Craigslist ad looking for "a real aggressive man with no concern for women" to fulfill a rape fantasy. However, she didn't post the ad - it had been her disgruntled ex-boyfriend, a Marine stationed in California who was posing as her. Similar stories abound, online abuse experts said.

'No recourse'
The Internet "makes it so easy for stalkers and harassers to ruin somebody's life with a few keystrokes, and there's little to no recourse for victims to try and undo the damage," said Jayne Hitchcock, president of the volunteer organization Work to Halt Online Abuse, who was a victim of cyberstalking.

No one seems to know how widespread the problem is, but Hitchcock said she has noted more complaints about MySpace, Twitter, Facebook and e-mail impersonations.

"I probably see it more often than I'd like to through our organization," she said.

But when it comes to addressing the problem, not everybody is convinced Simitian's approach is the best. Corynne McSherry, a staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, said the scope of Simitian's bill was defined too loosely and could have a negative effect on freedom of speech. For one, she said, the definition of harm needs to be narrowed.

"Harm is a pretty broad term. That could just mean that you undermined a politician's reputation. I'm concerned that the nature of 'harm' is too vaguely defined," she said.

McSherry also expressed concern that the bill would not protect some forms of parody and satire on the Internet that involve impersonation.

For instance, she pointed to the Yes Men, activists that the foundation is representing in a lawsuit filed against them by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. In October, the group held a fake news conference posing as chamber representatives who promised the organization would no longer lobby against climate-change legislation.

"It was a very effective form of satire that was really useful in provoking some form of debate," McSherry said. "I don't think it's Sen. Simitian's intent to shut down this form of freedom of speech but I believe it's what this bill can do."

Simitian's bill names "credible" impersonators that act without consent, but, McSherry said, "Just requiring that an impersonation is credible is not going far enough to protect the type of political speech I'm talking about."

And even though she supports the spirit of Simitian's bill, Hitchcock questions whether it's enforceable, considering the need to educate law enforcers on online abuse issues and the jurisdictional problems relating to cybercrimes.

"Unless the victim and the harasser are both in California, it's going to need a lot of collaboration between law enforcement agencies and the states. And if (the impersonator) is in another country, good luck. But it's a start," she said.

Hard to enforce
Danielle Keats Citron, a law professor at the University of Maryland who has written extensively about the role of the law and online abuse, believes the proposed law will have challenges based on the enforcement difficulties and the broadness of its interpretation.

But even if the bill in its current form becomes law, Citron said, the statute might have an overall positive effect. At its most basic level, the measure might help change attitudes about what's permissible, she said.

"The legislation is trying to take the lead on this emerging technology that people are abusing, and teaching them how to treat each other," she said. "It's an important point we shouldn't forget."

She added: "But we also have to get the law right."

original article here

Stalker Sending Men to My House for Sex ...was my Ex!

By NIKKI WATKINS


(U.K.) Amy Lees answered a knock at her front door and a man burst in, grabbed her by the throat and threatened to rape her. The sicko fantasist had been led to believe she was keen to take part in a sordid sex game. She fought him off — but he was just one of hundreds of strangers who kept turning up on her doorstep for months demanding that she had sex with them.

Traumatised Amy was the victim of a vicious internet stalker who had plastered her name, photos and home address on websites offering her up for weird role-play fantasies. And, shockingly, the stalker was her ex-boyfriend Khalid Hussain — who she had turned to for help when she felt besieged, scared and vulnerable in her home.

Amy has bravely waived her anonymity to tell her horrifying story to The Sun. She said: "For nine months I was stalked. It was the worst time of my life. I was trapped and frightened. I wouldn't wish that terror on my worst enemy. It was a truly horrifying experience."

Amy, a 31-year-old barmaid, first met care worker Hussain, 30, via a dating website in October 2009.

She said: "I had just come out of a relationship and wanted to have fun so I joined the site. I got chatting to Khalid. He seemed very kind and sweet. After a couple of weeks chatting on MSN and Facebook I invited him round for dinner. We chatted for hours and by the end of the evening we were a couple. He was very attentive and sent me bouquets of flowers every week."

But they began having arguments and split up quite regularly. Three months after their meeting, Amy ended the relationship. She said: "While we were apart I went on Facebook and noticed a friend request from a man called Simon. Although I didn't know him, I replied because I was flattered to get male attention. We started emailing and texting. He wanted a sexy picture so, stupidly, I sent him a picture of myself in underwear. As soon as I hit send, I regretted it."

The next day Simon put the picture on Amy's Facebook wall under the caption: "Here's my new girlfriend I'm going to f*** the a*** off her." Her voice shaking, Amy said: "I was shocked, took the photo down and texted Simon telling him to leave me alone. He texted back saying, 'I'm going to have my fun, you f***ing bitch, wait and see.' Seeking emotional support, I got back with Khalid and he was really supportive. I felt safer knowing he was there."

Days later Amy started getting texts from Simon calling her disgusting names. Amy said: "Things were terrible and I felt as if I needed somebody to be there for me — but Khalid was becoming very controlling. I knew I had to end things with him for good. "We parted as friends and stayed in touch. Every time I was contacted by Simon I'd tell Khalid, desperate for support."

Amy called the police about the harassment and they shut down her Facebook account while they investigated. But in February 2010 things took a menacing turn when men — often up to 20 a day — started arriving at her house wanting to have sex with her. Amy said: "When the first person came to the door asking me for sex I was so gobsmacked I just closed it in his face. But the second and third time it happened I knew it was probably down to Simon. I was so confused and vulnerable. I became petrified and would always check from my upstairs window who was at the door before I opened it. I kept a frying pan at hand, so I felt protected, and friends would stay over so I felt safer. The police were still involved but there seemed to be little they could do. I became a quivering wreck as the men knocked at the door and shouted obscenities through my letterbox. I hardly slept and every day became a battle. I became too weak and frightened to leave the house.

"About four months after the men started arriving, there was a knock on the door. I opened it a crack and saw a respectable-looking man in his forties. He grabbed me by the throat, said he was going to rape me and pushed me inside the house. I tried to fight him off and my friend, who was in my house at the time, ran to help me. The man realised his mistake and stepped away, whispering, 'I'm sorry. I thought I was talking to you on the internet. I thought this is what you wanted'.

"He ran out of the house and I managed to get his registration number and call the police. I put panic alarms supplied by the police all over the house and added a chain to the door. They also put a sign up on my door explaining that any internet directions to my house were a hoax."

The man was arrested but not charged because he had been talking to someone online who had set up a fake profile. That someone turned out to be Hussain — and he had set up many other profiles in her name. He had used photos from her Facebook account and given out her home address.

He was jailed for two years nine months in September last year after admitting harassment.

There were 53,000 cyber-stalking allegations recorded in 2009 and experts believe the actual number could be ten times this. New laws are set to be introduced to combat the crime.

Amy said: "The shock of knowing my ex-boyfriend was behind all of this left me feeling physically sick. He had written that I was into rape re-enactment along with numerous sordid sexual acts. It made me feel disgusted. He had seemed kind but all along he was evil and dangerous. I'm glad he is in jail and can't do that to anyone else — but if I had been the judge I would have given him life. I still find it very difficult to trust anyone. I sleep in the room with my four Staffordshire bull terriers and don't like going out on my own."

Amy is now making a fresh start, having found a new man. But she warned: "It is so important that cyber stalking is taken seriously because we are all at risk."

If you think you are being stalked, it is vital to act now.

For more information and to get help in the U.K. contact the Suzy Lamplugh Trust at suzylamplugh.org or 020 7091 0014

original article here

Online Impersonation? Get Arrested.

(Texas, U.S.) A 34-year-old Odessa man was charged with online harassment after reportedly pretending to be his ex-girlfriend and asking for sex.

Kevin Wade Johnson, 12055 W. Edith St., remained in custody Thursday on a $15,000 bond.

According to an arrest warrant affidavit, Johnson’s ex-girlfriend started getting calls from people wanting to meet her to have sex. One of them told her he’d gotten her number off of her profile at the mobile gaming community MocoSpace, and when she searched for her name, the profiles “1hottnurse4u” and “nastynurse4u” came up, which included her personal and work phone numbers, as well as photos of her, the affidavit stated.

The woman suspected that Johnson had been the one to create the profiles because they were ones she knew he had, the affidavit stated.

After making the report Aug. 9, Odessa police got a search warrant Aug. 30 for MocoSpace’s data and found that the phone number connected with the profiles belonged to Johnson, the affidavit stated. Sept. 14, a third profile “hotnurse4u” was created, again with the woman’s information and photos of her, the affidavit stated. Oct. 6, a grand jury subpoena was served to MocoSpace for the third account, and it, too, was connected with Johnson’s number. Sprint-Nextel confirmed Johnson as the account holder for the number Oct. 7, the affidavit stated.

The arrest warrant was signed Oct. 12, and Johnson was arrested Monday on the third-degree felony charge.

original article found here

Puppetmaster Cyberpath Coerces Victims into Webcam 'Acts'

CANADA -- An Ottawa man who pleaded guilty to blackmailing girls and young women into performing degrading acts in front of a computer like a "puppeteer pulling strings" was handed an eight-year-sentence on Friday.

Ontario Court Justice Celynne Dorval said Ryan Earl McCann, 20, committed "premeditated torture" on his young victims, and used his youth to manipulate them into doing what he wanted.

McCann used nearly a dozen phoney online personas to manipulate women and girls as young as 14 into committing "demeaning" acts under the threat of physical violence or the release of the webcam videos on the Internet.

"When manipulation failed, his weapons of choice were threats which rendered the complainants powerless and unable to control their own lives," said Dorval. "Contrary to his fictional characters, each one of these young women is a 'real' person. He leaves behind a trail of scarred and emotionally fragile teenagers and young women."

McCann pleaded guilty earlier this month to 26 charges, including extorting young girls and women to make pornographic videos, producing child pornography, invitation to sexual touching, harassment and uttering death threats against 22 victims.

One of McCann's victims left the courtroom in tears as the judge outlined the crimes committed against her.

Dorval said McCann's nearly two dozen young women suffered "significant consequences" while McCann was "callous and uncaring" to the harm he was causing.

"Shame, self-loathing and loss of confidence are common to all," said Dorval, adding some now suffer nightmares, sleeplessness and a constant concern for the safety of their families.

Dorval said McCann's videos, including one in which the webcam captured stuffed animals on the headboard of a bed behind a young girl performing explicit acts, provided a "very graphic image of the sexualizing of children."

Wearing wire-rimmed glasses and a white hooded sweatshirt, McCann occasionally hung his head as he sat silently in the prisoner's box. He briefly acknowledged his family, who sat in the front row.

"Bye Ryan, I love you," one of his sisters called out as he was being led out of court.

With two-for-one credit for 13 months of time served, he now has five years and 10 months of his sentence to serve.

Dorval said a 2007 psychiatrist's report turned out to be "prophetic" when it found McCann had the capacity to inflict "significant emotional and psychological harm" in situations where he perceives he is in power. The doctor also concluded McCann, who apologized in court last week, lacked the capacity to feel guilt or remorse.

McCann confessed to developing an elaborate scheme to recruit girls and women between the ages of 14 and 21 to perform sexually explicit acts for money by portraying his purported company, Talen's Playground, as a legitimate business.

McCann, who was 18 at the time, would initially chat with his victims on Facebook or MSN Messenger. Then he would encourage the young women to take on "clients" who would instruct them to perform in exchange for huge sums of money, depending on the explicitness and number of sexual acts they performed.

But instead of paying, McCann blackmailed the girls and young women into committing more degrading acts by threatening to expose the videos or to recruit their friends by using the victims' own online identities, which he had hacked. McCann also had two 15-year-old girls perform sex acts on him.

McCann assumed 11 different personas to further the ruse and intimidate his victims, including threatening physical violence and death. Many of them didn't realize he was the only person involved until after his plea.

Although the victims were told they were performing for clients, McCann admitted to police he had the victims do the shows "for his own personal pleasure" and because he enjoyed the thrill of being a predator.

In the videos, the young women removed clothing, danced in front of the camera, touched themselves, simulated sex acts on the handles of flashlights or hairbrushes and carried out more explicit acts. At other times, they wrote degrading messages on their bodies. Some cried throughout their performances. One threatened suicide.

In addition to prison time, McCann was ordered to provide a DNA sample to the national databank, was added to the sex offender registry and prohibited from possessing weapons for 10 years.

He was also ordered to stay away from parks, playgrounds, schools, daycares or any other place children under the age of 16 may be present for life. That order also bans him from using computers to communicate with children under 16.

CLICK HERE TO READ THE HEARTBREAKING VICTIM IMPACT STATEMENTS

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