By MARISSA DECHANT
Staff writer
Two Oil City residents are facing charges following an alleged online stalking incident that occurred last month.
A criminal complaint filed through District Judge Andrew Fish’s office said that on Sept. 13, Franklin state police received a report from Jerad Himes, 27, and Jessica Lee, 39, who said they had been receiving life-threatening Facebook messages from the same woman.
The message sent to Lee also indicated that Lee had made the effort to connect with the woman on Facebook, the complaint said.
On Sept. 16, Himes and Lee reported receiving another threatening message from a different account bearing the same woman’s name, the complaint said. Lee also reported receiving another message the following day, the complaint said.
On Sept. 22, Himes provided a written statement to police that he had received the threatening text messages, the complaint said.
That day, police served a search warrant on phones belonging to Himes and Lee and found a threatening message sent from Himes to Lee on Facebook, the complaint said.
Police found an email to Himes from Facebook that provided him the log-in information to the account of the woman who had been allegedly sending him and Lee threatening messages, the complaint said.
Police also received information that Himes was posing as the woman on a dating website, the complaint said.
In an interview with the woman on Sept. 29, the woman told police she had been receiving messages on the dating website from profiles named “statecopsti” and “officerCBE,” which told her to stop using the website, the complaint said.
Police said they believed Himes was behind the accounts since he had used the website in the past, the complaint said.
Himes is facing felony counts of stalking and criminal use of a communication facility, in addition to misdemeanor counts of unsworn falsification to authorities, impersonating a public servant, two misdemeanor counts of false reports and five misdemeanor counts of harassment.
His preliminary hearing is tentatively set for Wednesday in Central Court.
Lee is facing four misdemeanor counts of false reports.
Her preliminary hearing is tentatively set for Nov. 15 in Central Court.
