NY Man Awaits Sentencing In Mich. Cyberstalking Case
DETROIT (WWJ/AP) - Federal prosecutors are recommending a 30-month prison sentence for a young Republican activist who stalked and extorted women after finding nude photos of them online.
Adam Savader, of Great Neck, N.Y., was accused of threatening to release the photos unless women sent some to him. Many were college students in Michigan and elsewhere who knew him from various schools.
The 22-year-old is returning to Detroit federal court Wednesday, five months after pleading guilty.
Savader used an alias while sending text messages over a Google phone service. He admitted that he got access to the nude photos through hacked accounts that belonged to 15 women in Detroit, Washington, D.C., and Long Island, New York.
Psychologist Barbara Kirwin says Savader has bipolar disorder, adding that he suffered a breakdown after working for the presidential campaigns of Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney.
Authorities said Savader targeted the women between May 2012 and February 2013.
One young woman complained to police in Michigan in September 2012, after she received threatening text messages from an unknown person calling himself "John Smith," the criminal complaint said. One of the text messages sent the woman to the photo-sharing website Photobucket, where she saw naked pictures of herself that she had stored in a private folder and never shared, prosecutors said.
Savader, posing as "John Smith," told the woman he would send the photos to her parents if she did not send him more naked photos, and asked her numerous personal and inappropriate questions, prosecutors said.
A second young woman was contacted by Savader around the same time, this time identifying himself as "the person with the nude pics of your mom," prosecutors said. He told the victim he would send the photo to others, including the woman's father, prosecutors said.
A third woman also heard from Savader in September, this time as "the person with the nude photos of you," prosecutors said. He threatened to send nude pictures of her to the Republican National Committee, her parents and her sorority if she did not send more nude photos of herself, prosecutors said.
The young woman said she received over 80 text messages from Savader, continuing through the end of 2012, prosecutors said.
Savader contacted several other victims and threatened them similarly, prosecutors said. Some had, in fact, taken nude photos that they had not shared with anyone other than their boyfriends, while others had never taken any nude photos of themselves at all, prosecutors said. In one case, Savader tried to blackmail a young woman with a picture of her kissing her younger sister at a high school party when she was 16 – a photo that she never knew about, prosecutors said.
Savader also made numerous sexually explicit comments to his victims, prosecutors said.
The language that Savader used with one victim was: "I swear on all that is holy. If you f**k with me again I will send these to your parents. I have no problem sending them to ur parents, friends and sorority sisters unless you cooperate by answering me."
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