In a ruling by Judge Ted Stewart of the District of Utah, issued in the case U.S. v. Wang with a September 9 date but only recently added to the docket:
The defendant challenged a probation condition requiring her to inform intimate partners about the potential risk she presents, arguing that the language was too vague. To remove any ambiguity, the court clarified the requirement: “You must notify any intimate partners that you have been convicted of cyberstalking and that you pose a risk of stalking and harassment to those partners.” The judge determined that this provision is essential for public safety, given the defendant’s history of cyberstalking and her relationships with former victims.
I believe similar measures are sometimes applied to sex offenders, but this appears to be the first instance of such a standard being imposed on a stalker. (It is worth noting that once a criminal defendant has been convicted, the bar for evaluating probation conditions that restrict or compel speech becomes more favorable to government interests than would be the case in the absence of conviction.) Here is the Justice Department’s summary of the case:
A Utah County woman was sentenced to one year of imprisonment and three years of probation today for cyberstalking two male victims she met on online dating platforms and grew obsessed with.
According to court records and remarks made during Wang’s change-of-plea and sentencing hearings, Wang connected with the victims separately on dating sites in 2017 and 2018 and developed an fixation on each one. Using multiple accounts, fictitious names, social media profiles, and phone numbers, she harassed and disparaged them both publicly and privately, tagging their friends, family, and employers.
On three separate occasions, Wang reported the victims to the federal Internet Crimes Complaint Center (IC3), claiming she was being harassed and impersonated online by them. Wang asserted that they acted in concert, even though there is no evidence that the victims were connected. Wang acknowledged that she filed the IC3 complaints to prompt law enforcement to investigate the victims in order to harass and intimidate them.
Wang’s actions toward victim 1 and victim 2 were not isolated incidents. She had engaged in a pattern of stalking behavior in 2013 and had a prior conviction in the state of New York.
