It took only three weeks for California's new cyberstalking law to get its first workout.
Los Angeles County prosecutors last week brought the first case under the statute against a 50-year-old security guard who allegedly went online to provoke the rape of a 28-year-old woman who had rejected his advances.
Prosecutors said the jailed suspect, Gary Steven Dellapenta, posted messages under the unidentified woman's name. The notes, which appeared in America Online chat rooms and on the Net, said the woman had an unfulfilled sexual fantasy of being raped. The posts included her name, address, phone number, and instructions for disarming her home-security system, prosecutors said.
At various times since the posts began early last year, six men did show up at the woman's apartment in North Hollywood, police said. They didn't gain entry, however. Dellapenta, first arrested in November, was charged with stalking; using a computer to commit fraud, deceive or extort; and solicitation to commit sexual assault, charges that could bring seven years in prison. Dellapenta has pleaded not guilty and is being held in lieu of $300,000 bail.
"Men would come to her door in the middle of the night," the victim's mother told The Los Angeles Times. "She got dozens of calls by men who would leave filthy, disgusting messages."
Her daughter became so desperate that she placed a note on her apartment door saying the Internet ads were fakes posted by someone out to harm her. But new messages would be posted, saying that the note itself was part of the fantasy and to disregard it, the mother told The Times.
She added that her daughter was so terrified that she lost her job and dropped from 130 pounds to just 95 pounds today.
California's cyber-stalking law took effect 1 January and is similar lto statutes on the books in Alaska, Connecticut, New York, Oklahoma, and Wyoming.
