Lindsy Lohan, Paris Hilton, Stalking - And the Fourth Just Keeps Giving

Although the Fourth reversed portions of United States v. Elaine Cioni, finding that the government improperly elevated a misdemeanor offense to a felony, the most interesting part of the case is the recitation of what a scorned lover can do in this new age.

Pay attention to how the Fourth slipped Lindsay Lohan and Paris Hilton into the opinion. And ask yourself: who should poor Craig Scott should be suing?

"Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned/ Nor hell a fury like a woman scorned." 

-William Congreve

"Beginning in the summer of 2005, Cioni began having an affair with Bruce Enger, her former supervisor at Long & Foster Realty in Northern Virginia. Both Cioni and Enger were married at the time. During the affair, which continued for approximately two years, Cioni suspected that she was not the only one with whom Enger was having an affair. Nonetheless, after Cioni relocated to the Chattanooga, Tennessee area to take a new job and after the affair ended, Cioni and Enger
remained on speaking terms, and occasionally communicated by telephone or e-mail.

Beginning in March 2007, however, Cioni began an anonymous electronic campaign of harassment against Enger, that lasted more than a year and that was uncovered only after an extensive investigation.

Initially, Enger started receiving harassing telephone calls from an unknown source. The calls were made to several of Enger’s telephone numbers, including those of his office, mobile telephone, his wife Maureen’s telephone, and the telephones of several of his business associates. In each case, the person making the call spoke in a distorted male voice and revealed private information regarding Enger’s work and personal life. For example, on August 24, 2007, the unidentified
person called Enger on his Blackberry and said, "I know where you are . . . be]cause I’m there too. I followed you." At other times, the caller recited the contents of Enger’s password protected e-mail accounts and told Enger that "we’re
watching every move you make" and that copies of damaging e-mails would be sent to Enger’s family while he was travelling. Occasionally the calls also made threats toward Enger,telling him, for example, that he "need[ed] to get on out of Dodge." Caller identification indicated that the calls originated from telephone numbers familiar to Enger, such as his home telephone number or his daughter’s cell phone number, but in fact they originated from other telephones. Although Enger sought to avoid the calls by changing his telephone numbers several times, these efforts were unsuccessful, and the harassing calls continued through May 2008.

At Enger’s prompting, the harassment campaign was investigated by Long & Foster, which sought to identify the caller’s identity. Long & Foster’s investigation focused on Craig Scott, a former employee who Long & Foster believed had a
motive for retaliating against company officials, as well as the technical knowledge necessary to carry out the campaign. Between March and September 2007, Long & Foster gathered evidence relating to the calls, to prior computer network intrusions, and to Scott’s whereabouts. Long & Foster then provided that information to local authorities, who charged Scott with making the harassing telephone calls and improperly accessing Enger’s e-mail. The charges, however, were later dismissed because of a lack of supporting evidence. The investigation nonetheless had a catastrophic impact on Scott, who lost both his job and his marriage in the process.

Frustrated with its lack of progress in the investigation, Long & Foster turned to the FBI, which conducted an extensive investigation and ultimately determined that the harassing calls were made not by Scott but by Cioni and her longtime friend, Sharon Thorn. The FBI learned that Cioni and Thorn had used a service known as "Spoofcard," which enabled them to mask their telephone numbers and voices, and make downloadable audio recordings of their calls. Spoofcard’s billing records, which the FBI subpoenaed, indicated that over 300 calls were made from Cioni’s telephones using some or all of Spoofcard’s features, and more than 220 of the calls were made to Enger’s various telephone numbers. Inspired by actress Paris Hilton’s reported use of similar technology to access rival Lindsay Lohan’s voicemail, Cioni also used Spoofcard to access Enger’s voicemail, during which
time she listened to new messages, played old messages, deleted messages, and left her own disguised messages. Payment for many of the Spoofcard calls was made electronically from computers at Cioni’s home and workplace, using a credit
card belonging to Cioni.

The FBI’s investigation also revealed that Cioni had accessed or attempted to access numerous e-mail accounts belonging to Bruce Enger, his wife, Maureen Enger, their children, and several of Enger’s business associates, including Patricia Freeman, Enger’s former assistant. These intrusions were documented in log files kept by AOL, Google, and other Internet service providers, which indicated that computers with Internet Protocol addresses linked to Cioni’s home and office had accessed or had attempted to access each of the accounts noted. All of the accounts were password protected, and none of the account holders had shared their passwords
with Cioni. The FBI discovered that Cioni had gained access to many of these e-mail accounts by using an online service known as "yourhackerz.com," which, for a fee, acquired thirdparties’ e-mail passwords surreptitiously. Some of the payments
to yourhackerz.com were made by Cioni using Thorn’s credit card, with Thorn’s permission, so as to "hide the paper trail."

Finally, on May 22, 2008, FBI agents obtained a warrant to search both Cioni’s office and residence. These searches uncovered additional evidence linking Cioni to the e-mail intrusions and harassing telephone calls. In particular, the agents discovered on Cioni’s computers images of e-mail inboxes belonging to two of Enger’s acquaintances, fragments of e-mail communications between Enger family members, and a confirmation e-mail from yourhackerz.com for the purchase of Enger’s e-mail password.

Cioni was indicted for her electronic communications crimes, and, following a four-day trial, was convicted on all counts..."

All I can say is Yikes.