North Country Gazette



The Many Faces Of Cyberstalking

Posted on Monday, 1 of September , 2008 at 12:27 pm

By June Maxam

Part I

It first started in June 2005 with harassing emails about the Schiavo case, obviously from a supporter of Michael Schiavo, the Florida man who killed his wife because she was disabled.

Then came the defamatory and libelous postings on several forums which were traced to a computer owned by the Town of Chester and indicated that a municipal employee was engaged in cyberstalking of the publisher of The North Country Gazette during work hours funded by the taxpayers and using a taxpayer owned computer.

Although Chester supervisor Fred Monroe, now the chairman of the Warren County Board of Supervisors, claimed the situation had been “investigated” by the Warren County Sheriff’s Department, there is no file on the case and the sheriff’s department has no computer crimes unit.

Next came messages sent to other people using the name of the North Country Gazette publisher, the postings on various messages boards using the publisher’s name, signing the publisher up for unwanted newsletters, magazines and other material.

The harassment and cyberstalking was reported to the New York State Police and they purportedly opened an investigation in conjunction with the Warren County District Attorney’s office, an investigation still ongoing and with arrests imminent.

Three years later, the situation has escalated to computer intrusions, theft of data files, theft of e-mails. Since February, there have been over 500 harassing messages sent by one individual using Verizon including a bomb threat, death threats and much more from one person who was first identified by police two years ago.

Another, also identified, is sending harassing messages in another manner, in a manner in which he apparently thinks he can’t be tracked. But he has been and once again, this particular harassment appears to be originating from a municipal employee.

Another person has linked the North Country Gazette website to a hard porn site, is using the publisher’s name in various situations, a type of identity theft. This individual, associated with a now defunct web site has been under law enforcement scrutiny for months, has published data files stolen from The North Country Gazette on his website and has been identified in numerous other ways.

And then there’s the situation involving the Topix forum involving the Terri Schiavo case and the posters Unreal, Amazed, Boohil who think they’re hiding in anonymity as well as Walter Gay, husband of Cynthia Gay. She’s the paralegal for George Felos, Michael Schiavo’s attorney in the judicial homicide of Terri Schiavo.

The Schiavo case, that seems to be one of the key connectors in the ongoing cyberstalking.

This article is continued at http://www.northcountrygazette.org/2008/09/01/cyberstalking_growing/ as this entire article and other special reports and commentaries are now available only to subscribers of the NCG Daily News Digest. To sign up, click on the display ad on the right hand side of the home page at www.northcountrygazette.org If you wish to pay by check or money order rather than PayPal, please contact us at news@northcountrygazette.org for a mailing address. 9-1-08

Category: Consumers, Courts, Crime, Education, Internet, Media, Nationwide, New York State, Police, Schiavo, Technology, Warren County

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