After being charged and breaking his court-ordered restrictions, a man in New Mexico has pleaded guilty to cyberstalking multiple women for months on end.
An Albuquerque resident, Phillip Gonzales, 39, has been described by the Department of Justice (DoJ) as showing a “pattern of persistent digital harassment” towards multiple women over nine months.
Gonzales successfully stalked and sent various “graphic sexual images” to his victims via anonymous texting applications and Voice Over Internet Protocol (VoIP) services.
VoIP services allow users to call others via the internet. Common VoIP services include Zoom, Skype, Google Voice, Viber, and WhatsApp.
It’s unclear which platforms Gonzales used to launch his attacks. Still, he could have used anonymous texting applications like Signal or Telegram, which both allow users to message each other without revealing their identities.
The nature of the messages grew increasingly violent as Gonzales expressed his fanatasties of raping his victims.
The perpetrator also claimed and even demonstrated that he knew their personal information, the DoJ said.
After the threats were supposedly called in, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agents legally accessed data relating to various numbers, which were linked to an IP address in Albuquerque.
Once the address was tied to Gonalzes and his father, the FBI searched the residence and took various electronic items into evidence in May 2023.
The FBI discovered that Gonzales had victimized four more women threatening to rape and kill them.
In September 2023, Gonzales was charged with cyberstalking and placed in custody ahead of trial, but he was released on the condition that he was limited to one phone and needed approval to use the internet.
However, he broke these conditions and was found with two phones, which he used to send unsolicited messages to two women.
Gonzales has pleaded guilty to three counts of cyberstalking and has been sentenced to 33 months in federal prison.
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