Man imprisoned for cyberterror on teenage girls; PAULA CHRISTIAN, of The Tampa Tribune; October 6, 2000, Friday, FINAL EDITION Copyright 2000 The Tribune Co. Publishes The Tampa Tribune TAMPA - A man goes to prison for an Internet extortion scheme in which he tried to get teenage girls to have sexual talks with him. A Tampa man was sentenced to 21 months in prison Thursday in a bizarre case of cyberterrorism that targeted teenage girls. Before his arrest last year, Robert Harvey Alexander had assembled a list of 100 e-mail addresses of high school and college students from across the country, called his "Victim's List." A federal prosecutor said Alexander deliberately targeted vulnerable young women, many of whom were away from home for the first time at college. Alexander, who was a deacon at First Baptist Church in Tampa, demanded that the girls have explicit sexual conversations with him or he would ruin their reputations, according to court documents. At the end of the four-hour court hearing, a federal judge ruled that these crimes were so morally reprehensible that Alexander deserved a longer sentence than what federal guidelines recommend. U.S. District Judge Steven Merryday gave Alexander a sentence that was more than double the 10 months in prison he could have received. "You've committed a despicable crime," Merryday said. Alexander sent his victims threatening e-mail from computers at public libraries. He taunted them that police would never be able to find him. But FBI agents arrested him in November at a computer terminal at a public library in Tampa. A few months later, Alexander pleaded guilty to six counts of extortion. In one case, he called a 16-year-old girl demanding that she talk sexually with him on the telephone and computer while he masturbated. He said if she didn't go along with him, he would take photos of her face and digitally add them to a naked woman for an Internet posting, according to court documents. "I cannot describe the fear and frustration my family was subjected to," the girl's father told the judge. "She was afraid to leave her own home." Alexander, 52, later apologized to this father and said he could understand his anger because he also has a daughter about the same age. "I cannot find the words to express ... how sorry I am, how guilty I feel," Alexander said. His attorney, Adam Allen, had tried to argue that Alexander deserved a lesser sentence because he suffered from bipolar disorder and could not fully appreciate what he had done. But Merryday rejected the argument. "This defendant is in essence a cyberterrorist," Assistant U.S. Attorney Colleen Murphy told the judge. Paula Christian covers federal courts and can be reached at (813) 259-7616 or [EMAIL PROTECTED] unsubscribe: cybercrime-alerts [EMAIL PROTECTED] subscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] url: http://theMezz.com/alerts ___________________________________________________________ T O P I C A The Email You Want. http://www.topica.com/t/16 Newsletters, Tips and Discussions on Your Favorite Topics
