The feds arrested a “keyboard coward” from Plymouth who they are saying waged a years-long on-line marketing campaign to humiliate, harass, threaten and damage the fame of a lady who seems to have been an informal acquaintance.
“Enjoy Your Exposure You Naughty Bimbo. You Belong To The Internet,” James Florence allegedly wrote underneath considered one of his many faux accounts depicting the likeness of the goal of the brutal marketing campaign prosecutors say he maintained since late 2017.
His alleged intentions with the content material had been made clear, as personally identifiable info he shared concerning the girl got here together with a course to “Post & Share Her Everywhere. Make The (expletive) Famous.”
James Florence Jr., 36, of Plymouth, was arrested Wednesday morning and hauled into federal courtroom in Boston’s Seaport for an preliminary look on a single depend of cyberstalking. Justice of the Peace Choose M. Web page Kelley ordered Florence held till a proper detention listening to scheduled for Monday. Florence’s alleged actions may land him in federal jail for 5 years.
“The defendant’s alleged actions represent a chilling window into the dangers of online harassment and cyberstalking in the digital age,” performing U.S. Lawyer Joshua Levy stated in a press release. “Using advanced technology to manipulate, torment, and publicly humiliate someone for years is not just reprehensible, it is criminal. No one should have to endure the kind of relentless harassment and devastating psychological toll that we allege this victim has bravely endured.”
“We will continue to use every resource available to protect victims of these crimes and to bring justice to keyboard cowards who abuse the digital landscape for their own malicious purposes,” he continued.
The sufferer, a Massachusetts resident and college professor, first found that somebody was posting pictures of her and her underwear on Craigslist’s informal sexual encounters listings with out her information or consent, in keeping with an FBI affidavit supporting the costs. The photographs of her underwear appeared to her to have been taken at her former residence, the place Florence had at the very least typically attended events.
The net marketing campaign escalated in 2020, when the sufferer stated she was messages by a number of accounts on X, which was then often known as Twitter, with the identical photographs of her underwear. Then a Twitter account was created to showcase photos of the sufferer and tagged the sufferer’s precise X account.
“At the time, the Victim primarily used Twitter for professional reasons. The Victim did not want her professional connections seeing the obscene tweets in which she was tagged because she felt it would mar her reputation,” FBI Particular Agent Laura Macrorie wrote within the affidavit. “As a result, she deleted her Twitter account.”
The harassment grew in measurement when seven completely different accounts on a pornographic web site related to so-called “revenge porn” began posting her photographs, in addition to manipulated photos to make her seem nude or partially nude. The affidavit states the accounts uploaded 128 distinctive photos about 687 instances.
Then, between June 2023 and April 2024, at the very least 5 Reddit accounts had been created to share comparable photos. In all, the feds say the content material was posted to at the very least 13 web sites.
Florence allegedly directed viewers to unfold the pictures and the sufferer’s private info far and huge. The sufferer stated she acquired at the very least 60 emails, cellphone calls and textual content messages from unhealthy individuals who threatened to ship the pictures to her co-workers or college students in the event that they didn’t do what they informed her, which included calls for that she produce and ship them pornographic photos of herself.
“Today, the FBI arrested James Florence Jr. for allegedly trying to hide behind his keyboard to sadistically cyberstalk and surveille the victim in this case, inflicting immense trauma and pain on both her and her family,” stated Jodi Cohen, the particular agent answerable for the Boston FBI.
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