ST. PAUL, Minn. – A Chinese language nationwide was sentenced to 60 months in jail for cyberstalking a feminine Minnesota faculty pupil, and a concurrent 54 months’ imprisonment sentence for stealing the sufferer’s identification as part of his cyberstalking scheme, adopted by three years of supervised launch, introduced United States Legal professional Andrew M. Luger.
Based on courtroom paperwork, between January 2020 and November 2021, Ki Cheung Yau, 28, created a number of on-line accounts on numerous web sites, together with social media platforms, courting web sites and pornography web sites, utilizing the title, pictures, and personally figuring out data of the sufferer. Yau used these accounts to speak with strangers on the web whereas posing because the sufferer. Yau falsely portrayed the sufferer on social media, courting and sexually centered web sites as a younger girl soliciting submissive or violent sexual relationships.
Yau then communicated with strangers on-line and tried to assist them find the sufferer and observe via on his invites for dominating and violent sexual encounters. Based on courtroom paperwork, on two separate events in January 2021, a person went to the sufferer’s residence and requested for the sufferer by title, presumably as a result of he believed he was assembly the sufferer for a sexual encounter. Additionally, Yau’s cyberstalking resulted in strangers straight messaging the sufferer in response to specific accounts and posts made by Yau posing because the sufferer. Additional, the sufferer’s household and associates’ names, pictures, and make contact with data had been additionally included in Yau’s stalking scheme. The sufferer was pressured to maneuver to a brand new residence and alter her cellphone quantity.
On June 23, 2022, Yau pleaded responsible to at least one rely of cyberstalking and one rely of identification theft. As a part of his plea settlement, Yau admitted to cyberstalking seven extra victims exterior of Minnesota, in the US, Canada and the UK from 2017 to 2021.
Yau was sentenced on December 16, 2022, earlier than U.S. District Choose Wilhelmina M. Wright. Through the sentencing listening to, Choose Wright acknowledged that Yau’s “actions are predatory and purely evil,” exhibiting “a disregard for the protection and well-being of the victims and disrespect for the regulation.” In imposing the statutory most sentence for cyberstalking, Choose Wright mirrored on the affect of Yau’s cyberstalking on victims and advised Yau, “The accidents you trigger don’t heal simply.”
This case is the results of an investigation performed by the FBI and the St. Paul Police Division.
Particular Assistant U.S. Legal professional Hillary A. Taylor prosecuted the case.
