Things get weird
On Sept. 30, 2016, about six months after their breakup, JK’s phone buzzed with a text from an unknown Florida number. “Prepare yourself for what’s coming…the last 3 months were just the beginning,” the message read. “I have bigger plans for you…I love how easily manipulated you can be.” He wasn’t lying. In December, Kazzelbach went to Maryland state court and took out an order of protection against JK, claiming she had physically abused him and was texting death threats to his cell phone. She denied the accusations, but the court instructed her not to contact Kazzelbach. Kazzelbach then told authorities that JK violated the order. He called the police to his home four times in six days, showing cops threatening texts sent to him from JK’s number as evidence. She was taken into custody by Baltimore police shortly after New Year’s and thrown in jail. While JK was locked up in Baltimore, Kazzelbach called Anne Arundel police back to his home. He told the responding officer that he had an active protective order against JK, but that she contacted him twice that day. Anne Arundel cops filed a new set of charges against her, and took her back into custody as soon as she was released from the Baltimore jail. When JK got out of the Anne Arundel County lockup the next day, Kazzelbach reported her to cops four more times for violating the protective order. As usual, he had electronic proof in the form of multiple violent text messages and emails from JK’s accounts, including ones in which JK asked Kazzelbach to get back together, and others that seemed to encourage Kazzelbach take his own life. The county duly filed four new sets of charges against JK. In June 2017, Kazzelbach filed another report with police, alleging JK continued to threaten and intimidate him. She was arrested by Baltimore police—yet again—about a week later, and taken to the Baltimore County Detention Center. The following day, JK appeared before a judge who put her on house arrest and had her fitted with an electronic ankle monitor. In all, local police issued at least six separate arrest warrants for JK based on Kazzelbach’s accusations.Kazzelbach’s story unravels
The evidence Kazzelbach presented to police of JK’s supposed harassment campaign seemed strong. But something still didn’t add up for Baltimore detectives, who opened their own investigation into Kazzelbach. At the beginning of August, Baltimore police and the FBI conducted a joint interview with Kazzelbach. He claimed to have changed his phone number multiple times in response to the supposed harassment from JK. But Kazzelbach’s story was inconsistent, raising investigators’ suspicions. Kazzelbach wouldn’t allow a forensic search of his phone, so investigators obtained his call records from the phone company. They found no record of any communications between Kazzelbach and JK on the dates Kazzelbach claimed she had sent him threats. Detectives reviewed JK’s work email account. They found no messages sent by her to Kazzelbach on the dates he said she did. Baltimore detectives then got permission from JK to let them search her phone. “A review of JK’s phone did not reveal any successful or attempted text or email communication with Kazzelbach on the occasions that Kazzelbach reported to law enforcement having received messages from JK,” the complaint says. So if JK didn’t send the messages, who did? The FBI asked Kazzelbach if he knew about “spoofing,” which lets people send emails and texts that appear to come from other people. According to the complaint, Kazzelbach admitted that he once visited a spoofing site on the recommendation of a friend. Investigators subpoenaed Yahoo for Kazzelbach’s account records, and found an email from JK’s student loan servicer, confirming a password change. It had been sent to a Yahoo email address almost identical to JK’s real one, only the fake one had an underscore between her first and last names instead of a dot. Records supplied by Kazzelbach’s internet service provider revealed the bogus Yahoo account in JK’s name had been created from an IP address that traced back to Bankers Life, but had been verified with a phone number linked to Kazzelbach’s uncle. The IP address used for the failed login attempts on JK’s TurboTax account resolved to the home of another one of Kazzelbach’s relatives. State authorities ultimately dropped all charges against JK, and federal prosecutors filed their own against Kazzelbach. He was charged with cyberstalking and intentional damage to a protected computer in November, and was placed on home detention. The cyberstalking charges carry a potential prison sentence of at least a year, and Kazzelbach can get up to five years for the computer intrusions.Behind the investigation
The US Attorney’s Office, as a matter of policy, does not discuss cases that are ongoing. However, Alex Iftimie, a former federal prosecutor with the Justice Department’s National Security and Cybercrime units, explained why it took cops a full year to catch onto Kazzelbach’s scheme. “What was going on in this timeframe was really an investigation of JK, and local police acting on the information that Kazzelbach was providing to them,” Iftimie told Quartz. “There was a protective order saying that she is to stay away and not communicate with Kazzelbach. And I think that that may well have been part of the reason that police didn’t figure this all out a little sooner, in the sense that they believed that they were enforcing a lawful court order.” The Kazzelbach filings are “a pretty great example” of building a case after the fact, using a trail of metadata and subscriber information, Iftimie said. However, he continued, the fact that charges weren’t brought until three years after Kazzelbach’s alleged reign of technological terror began, shows how painstaking these types of complex investigations can be. It often takes months to get information back from the providers, Iftimie said. And, of course, the wheels of justice turn slowly. “It’s not a quick process,” Iftimie said. If Kazzelbach is convicted, Iftimie doesn’t think the court is likely to be forgiving. “I think judges would be particularly aghast with this conduct because he was able to manipulate the tools of justice to his advantage,” he said, adding that JK may also have grounds for a civil suit against Kazzelbach. Kazzelbach did not respond to multiple interview requests, and his lawyer declined to comment. He is set to be arraigned in US federal court on Jan. 16.DISCLAIMER: The Views, Comments, Opinions, Contributions and Statements made by Readers and Contributors on this platform do not necessarily represent the views or policy of Multimedia Group Limited.
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