Man spoofs threatening texts from ex-gf, gets her jailed multiple times (2020) | Hacker News Reader

Man spoofs threatening texts from ex-gf, gets her jailed multiple times (2020)

justice.gov

62 pointsjstarfish54 comments

My sister went through a lot of stuff like this with her ex-husband. For example, he waited until she went out for an evening and then brought the kids by at 11pm and said he was called into work. 30 minutes later the police show up and start asking her if she had been drinking. She had to go to family court and try to clear her name. The judge asked her why she said yes to taking care of the children when she knew she had alcohol. The whole thing was horrendous. Honestly, abusive men (and some women of course too) know that even a little lawfare goes a long way toward destroying people's lives. It's sick and wrong.

Abuse of the Duluth Model suggests you should just make that statement gender neutral, no?

It's utterly outrageous to me that SMS screenshots are taken as proof in 2023. Literally anyone in the world can create a 100% accurate pixel perfect SMS screenshot in their mobile OS of choice using Photoshop, Figma, or any other tool.

Remember when the entire internet canceled Chris D'Elia over a few leaked screenshots? Pitchforks on fire.

(2020)

Actually September 2016, but does it matter?

This is all after May 2016 and the article was published in January 2020. Thinking back on it, I know that SMS screenshots could be faked back in 2015.

Two phones would work as well.

They had three. The cops survived the perp over the course of 3 months so see where they kept the backup phones and got a warrant to get them.

Of course the judges know this. In fact, ALL documents can be faked. The perpetrator here affirmed (probably) under OATH that the document was true and correct, and not faked. Additionally, he may have fabricated other evidence to support the texts. As such, he got away with it.

Now that this is out, however, not only can he suffer criminal, contempt, and civil charges. But he will forever be labeled as a forger and NO documents of his will be usable in court if the other side contests them.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w68-of7OaJA#t=83

A friend of mine broke up with her fiance, who is ex-law enforcement. He accused her of domestic violence (threatening him with a gun), which got her fired from her security guard position. She had a nightmare with the courts and dawdling prosecution, so she was in limbo for about a year.

I really think judicial systems need to be far more careful about enabling harassers. Speeding up the process would help, as would covering the legal costs of those found innocent.

That's the whole point of "innocent until proven guilty" and it should be taken much more seriously as a concept.

I think domestic violence (alone, really) gets special treatment, because often there is simply not time to adjudicate the issue with full due process, so they usually grant ex-parte TROs for a few weeks and give the alleged abuser a hearing date/time to dispute the allegations.

I don't believe a TRO is really proof of any kind of guilt and nobody should be fired because one is filed, but I'm not sure that level of nuance gets through.

EDIT: Reading again, sounds like the guy probably filed some kind of police report against her and got the DA to file proper charges, which is a whole other can of worms, in which case I agree on both counts.

After reading up on it, it was a bit of both. They either know how to game the system or got lucky they filed a lot of death threats while the tro is pending and Then followed up with more after. The main legal error was that a judge granted a final restraining order based on he said she said. They then filed many more claims of death threats. The da did drop the charges due to lack of evidence, but the criminal switched jurisdictions to keep playing their game

In theory, at least, TROs are minimum-harm practice. If two people can't get along, separate them.

What I'd suggest as a balancing mechanism to avoid the abuses which, yes, do in fact happen by that means, is to make the orders mutual. That is, neither party may come in contact with, approach, or communicate with the other, and both are subject to further legal restrictions for violating those terms.

I would like to add that "innocent until proven guilty", like "free speech", shouldn't just apply to state action and should be a cultural norm; both of which have been regrettably slipping as of late.

In cases like the one in TFA, its a little difficult to follow "innocent until proven guilty" because both parties are claiming the other is guilty of something actionable. If the accusations are mild or the consequences are minor, then just restraining orders etc. can do the trick. But if I'm claiming that my partner is endangering our kids or my life, and my partner is alleging the same, or even just that I'm lying, "innocent until proven guilty" is non-trivial to adopt.

The slow speed of the judicial system is not conducive to "innocent until proven guilty", since lots of people are in limbo at any given time.

A slow judicial system drives up the cost of the innocent getting a good legal defense. It also delays consideration of new evidence that can exonerate the innocent that have been convicted.

The 6th Amendment to the US Constitution recognizes the need for judicial speed, even if court cases have effectively gutted that amendment (like the 4th with civil asset forfeiture).

Red Flag Laws, that people like to advocate for regarding firearms and the 2nd Amendment, are so very controversial because of this very avenue of abuse.

A mere accusation can deny someone their constitutional rights, in additional to other costs such as losing their job.

We can't have a system were a mere unsubstantiated accusation has legal consequences.

> A mere accusation can deny someone their constitutional rights

Specifically the 2nd amendment… for a time.

I don’t really have a problem with that as far as it’s impermanence goes.

The rest is difficult due to the nature of domestic disputes. I don’t have a good solution there.

Having the militia be well-regulated would also help here.

Except on youtube or anywhere else where dmca applies.

There is a similar problem with the handling of homeless as far as I know. Getting a 'mentally-ill' person off the street before they do damage to others requires the state to define a mental and behavioral baseline for ones right to self-determination.

Screwing that one up also sends us back to a really ugly place.

> I really think judicial systems need to be far more careful about enabling harassers.

Well they don't know they are harassers.

Well the comment only says they should try.

The system currently presumes Good Faith, and given human nature I'd put forward it should in fact presume Bad Faith...

Followup:

https://www.justice.gov/usao-md/pr/maryland-man-sentenced-fo...

https://casetext.com/case/united-states-v-kazzelbach

What an effing bastard...

He was sentenced to four years in prison. This is infuriating. Someone who does this should spend a significant portion of the rest of their life behind bars. Not as a punishment but to ensure that he doesn't do this to someone else. It's time to take crimes like this much more seriously. Perpetrators who do this ruin people's lives and cause a tremendous amount of emotional distress. Lock them up and throw away the key.

dont worry, he wont be able to do this to anybody else. A simple background search will have him labeled as a felon and a forger.

4 years is pretty serious.

One year for every day the victim was held in jail. A lifetime as an ex-con for the pain and suffering.

Watch out for righteous anger. It's like candy.

> Specifically, on July 25, 2016, Kazzelbach created an e-mail account that mimicked the victim’s real e-mail address and within 10 minutes, changed the name on the victim’s Apple account to the fake e-mail address he had created. Two days later, Kazzelbach initiated a password reset, locking the victim out of the account which controlled certain settings on her iPhone, as well as access to the photos, music, and videos associated with her account.

He did what? How? This sounds extremely bad (in addition to the rest of the story).

>How?

Social engineering is I believe the official term.

Basically: Get customer support monkey on the line, insist you're holding the right banana until the monkey does your bidding.

Every security mechanism known to man and monkey alike is susceptible to attacks on the customer support monkey.

They were together for 6 months. He likely knew the information necessary, passwords or otherwise, to access her stuff.

When you have one person who's experienced with tech, it's easy for the one who isn't to lean on them for tech stuff. A relative of mine let her boyfriend set up everything, then later lost access to everything, as she hadn't kept track of passwords. It could have been a much more nasty situation if the breakup had been on very bad terms or if the bf was particularly vindictive.

Underscoring the incredible incompetence of government in assessing the reality of claims and charges made. This was an indirect form of "SWATting", but the idea is the same: government uses force as a result of mere accusation, being too lazy and stupid to assess the facts.

There's a fallacy of composition here. Government isn't a monolith but rather a set of overlapping institutions. Inefficient (and perhaps poorly resourced/educated) local forces arrested this woman multiple times and kept her in jail for about 4 days; a slower but better resourced part of government (federal investigators) figured out what was going on and jailed the perpetrator for 4 years.

https://www.justice.gov/usao-md/pr/maryland-man-sentenced-fo...

I think it's much more useful to view governments as emergent entities in social fields. Where government is absent/not involved, private groups organize to fill the vacuum and then often seek certification as public entities, which is why there are ~17000 different police forces in the US.

Where is the incompetence? Some systems can be manipulated by bad actors, but that doesn't mean there is a better option. One can hope that they are self correcting in the long run to minimize error.

Im honestly suprised how much work law enforcement put in to nail this guy. They surveiled his home over 3 months to get a warrant for his electronics. The obtained IP reccord from most of the victims accounts and tracked the perps website access. They brought people in for questioning, ect.

Also, the DA's in charge of the victims cases dropped the charges for lack of evidence, before the investigation took place when Kazzelbach refused to let his phone be scanned.

I hope the true victim gets their criminal record expunged.

It's interesting that the plea deal was on cyber stalking and not false police reports.

As long as we have elements of the police and legal system that favor alleged victims, we need robust controls for individuals that abuse or manipulate the system. I hope this person sees some time

JFC, how is the _maximum_ sentence for (what I would consider had I been the victim) ruining her life for nearly a year (July '16 to June '17 from the looks of it) only ten years? I'm sure there will be a separate civil suit for loss of income, peace of mind, etc, but I would think that they would throw the book at someone like this. Not to mention the fraud he committed by forging policy cancellation letters...

The lesson here is be cautious and don't get personally involved with psychos. While there are a few good eggs out there, some people are mild liabilities while others are radioactive liabilities.

How easy are psychos to spot (in real time, not hindsight)?

Never said it was easy, methodical, or risk-free. With cautious reflection by moving slowly, getting to know their circle of friends and detractors.

Listening skills and having drinks/weed with people tend to loosen lips.

Some you can spot immediately while others take time. Charismatic people tend to be able to conceal themselves longer because they tend to be experts a crafting a public image.

Stop hopping into bed with what are effectively strangers is a good start.....

"Masking" is a common trait of psychopaths. They can maintain a facade for years.

Seeing how people deal with unwarranted criticism, constructive feedback, setbacks, and an apparent position of power with impunity are telling to their character. Narcissists tend to fly off the handle whenever things don't go their way and need constant attention/approval.

> In the message, Kazzelbach wrote, “Prepare yourself for what’s coming…the last 3 months were just the beginning. I have bigger plans for you…I love how easily manipulated you can be.”

That was his mistake I guess.

The more alarming part of this is how incompetent the guy was. If he'd been just slightly less obvious it sounds like he'd have gotten away with his campaign of harassment.

No, it sounds like Anne Arundel County was the one completely incompetent at investigating the supposed text messages, whereas he finally got caught when he tried the same crap in Baltimore County. How hard is it to ask for phone records that would show the actual messages were not being sent from his ex-gf's phone?

It's impossible to use phone records if it wasn't SMS e.g. WhatApp, Signal, iMsg.

Lack of phone records was one of the things they finally got him on, allong with a lot of IP tracking.

The challenge this this kind of evidence analysis comes into play pretty late in the process when it comes to violating restraining orders.

These error (literally) on the side of caution.

It sounds like it was a mixed bag for AA County:

> In March 2017, the Anne Arundel County prosecutor handling Kazzelbach’s case asked for Kazzelbach’s consent to download the contents of his iPhone, but Kazzelbach refused. The prosecutor told Kazzelbach that if he did not permit a full search of his phone, the Anne Arundel charges against the victim would be dismissed. In response, Kazzelbach began making false reports to Baltimore County instead. In May 2017, the Anne Arundel charges against the victim were dismissed.

To be fair to your claim, that was after significant mishandling, at least with the benefit of hindsight.

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