A member of the U.S. Marshals Service stands outside the Manhattan Federal Court structure.
Bryan R. Smith|AFP|Getty Images
A New York female was sentenced to time currently served in prison for cyberstalking in a case where she was implicated of “catfishing” a secret prominent CEO of an openly traded corporation.
The female, Sakoya Blackwood, 35, was charged in a Manhattan federal court indictment with attempting to obtain the unknown millionaire out of as much as $300,000 to keep her peaceful about his sexual experiences, and about an incorrect claim she threatened to make about him making love with a small.
Prosecutors have actually stated in a court filing that in addition to that CEO, Blackwood “targeted numerous other potential victims — all wealthy and high-profile men — using fictitious identities, while camouflaging her ownership of the accounts deployed in her catfishing scheme.” She was not charged in connection with those other males.
At her sentencing Wednesday, Blackwood was likewise purchased to serve 3 years of monitored release for the tried shakedown, which covered 6 months in2022 Judge Jesse Furman concurred with suggestions by her attorneys and probation authorities.
But since she pertained to the United States from Jamaica as a kid without legal migration status, Blackwood now deals with the danger of being deported and separated from her 12- year-old child, her legal representative stated in a court filing.
The Manhattan U.S. Attorney’s workplace had actually asked Furman to penalize the Bronx homeowner with a “significant term of imprisonment,” which would be in between 24 and 30 months provided federal sentencing standards. An workplace representative did not right away react to CNBC’s ask for remark.
Blackwood, because her arrest last August, had actually been kept in a Brooklyn prison, after a judge considered her to be a flight danger.
She pleaded guilty on March 28 to cyberstalking as part of a plea offer that caused the termination of the other 2 criminal counts she dealt with: extortion and usage of interstate interaction with intent to obtain.
Prosecutors in a court filing stated Blackwood attempted to obtain the victim by threatening to “falsely tell the world” that the guy “has sex with a minor.”
That claim was “a blatant lie which she invented out of whole cloth,” the filing kept in mind.
But what held true were raunchy pictures and messages the CEO shown Blackwood as she presented in electronic interactions as a previous romantic partner of the victim.
Blackwood then pretended to be a cruel ex-boyfriend and workers of media outlets– amongst them a Vanity Fair press reporter– supposedly thinking about reporting his conduct.
Such online deceptiveness is referred to as catfishing.
Blackwood likewise increase pressure on the victim in late April 2022 by “using Twitter to tweet veiled threats at the Victim,” district attorneys composed.
“She tweeted about a scandal brewing around the Victim and rhetorically asked what would happen to the share price and shareholders of the Victim’s company when the compromising information is released,” the filing stated.
The guy’s identity has actually never ever been revealed. But court filings explain him as a Harvard- informed CEO of an openly traded business who remains in his late 60 s.
“The defendant’s behavior was heartless,” district attorneys composed.
“For many months, the defendant kept the Victim suffering from the constant fear that his life would be ruined. She taunted him with the prospect of releasing embarrassing materials and, even worse, false accusations that he had sex with someone who was underage,” the filing stated.
Prosecutors stated Blackwood “employed sophisticated and devious means” for her plan, that included the production of “multiple online personas” and making use of a Voice over Internet Protocol contact number.
She likewise acquired the cellular phone varieties of the victim, his kid and 6 members of his business’s board of directors, “threatening to destroy the Victim’s life by disclosing to those close to him her false claims,” district attorneys composed.
Blackwood’s legal representative, Michael Tremonte, in his sentencing submission July 5, stated that after emigrating from Jamaica and making leading grades in high school, Blackwood at age 18 wed an older guy “who subjected her to extreme physical and mental abuse.”
Tremonte composed that “Blackwood never fully healed from the trauma,” which “she continued to experience the effects of PTSD and, like many survivors of domestic violence, continued to engage in unhealthy relationships and rely financially and emotionally on abusive men.”
“It was from this position of fear, vulnerability, and resentment toward her abusers that Ms. Blackwood made the terrible decision to send harassing messages to a millionaire CEO,” composed the legal representative, who did not right away react to CNBC’s ask for remark Thursday.
Tremonte composed that after 10 months in prison and the “dramatic wake-up call” from her arrest, “Ms. Blackwood has absorbed the enormous consequences of her poor decisions and could not be more ashamed.”
The defense attorney composed that Blackwood had a hard time mentally throughout the Covid-19 pandemic, and after unsuccessfully attempting to make money from day trading, started “compulsively reading on the Internet about powerful men who engage in abusive conduct.”
“She ended up being especially upset about stories including males who sexually benefited from young
ladies or mistreated positions of political, social, or business power, and after that got away with it,” Tremonte composed.
Blackwood then started calling males who were reported to have actually been associated with domestic violence, unwanted sexual advances or sexual attack of minors and others, according to her legal representative.
