A Herndon man was sentenced on July 26 to one year in prison for cyberstalking a victim in New York.
According to court documents, Brandon Theresa, 21 of Herndon, engaged in an extensive cyberstalking campaign against a victim from at least May 2015 through December 2018. During that time, he accessed the victim’s online accounts without her permission; created fake accounts in her name; and sent sensitive information from her account in order to embarrass her. When the victim tried to cut off communication with him, Theresa took more serious steps to maintain an unwanted presence in her life. For example, using the personal information of the victim and the victim’s friends and family, Theresa established U.S. Postal Service Informed Delivery accounts in their names to receive a steady stream of notifications about the mail sent to those individuals’ homes. He used this information to track the victim’s activities and learn about the people in her life. He continued to send veiled threats to the victim, using anonymizing technologies that made it difficult for the victim to block the communications. Theresa’s harassment of the victim continued well after the victim informed him that she was reporting his conduct to the police and did not cease until federal authorities executed a search warrant at his home in December 2018.
G. Zachary Terwilliger, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, Michael Ray, Inspector in Charge of Analytics/Cyber Division of the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, and Charles Dayoub, Acting Special Agent in Charge, Criminal Division, FBI Washington Field Office, made the announcement after sentencing by U.S. District Judge Claude M. Hilton. Assistant U.S. Attorney Laura Fong prosecuted the case.