Florida Man Sentenced for Extensive Cyberstalking and Threats Campaign

BOSTON – A Florida man was sentenced today in federal court in Boston for cyberstalking and threatening his former schoolmate, a 30-year-old Massachusetts woman.

Byron A. Cardozo, 35, who previously resided in Jacksonville and Tamarac, Fla., was sentenced by U.S. District Court Judge Allison D. Burroughs to 70 months in prison and three years of supervised release. In August 2019, Cardozo pleaded guilty to one count of cyberstalking and one count of making interstate threats. Cardozo was arrested in August 2018 and has been in custody since.

Cardozo engaged in an 18-month-long, multi-faceted cyberstalking and threats campaign targeting his former schoolmate. He launched his campaign in February 2017, shortly after the victim wrote an essay published in an online magazine describing a one-time, traumatic sexual encounter she had with Cardozo when she was approximately 13-years-old and he was approximately 17-years-old. The victim used pseudonyms for Cardozo and others in the essay. In response, Cardozo sent hundreds of online communications, many of which he made in the “comments” section to the essay and on the victim’s personal website, where he claimed that the victim fabricated her claims about the coercive nature of the sexual encounter. Cardozo provided graphic descriptions of his purported consensual sexual encounter with the victim and made express and implicit threats to injure the victim. At other times, he also apologized to her for the traumatic sexual experience, asked for forgiveness, expressed his love for her and made veiled threats to commit suicide.  Cardozo continued to harass and threaten the victim despite the fact that she had obtained a state court order in April 2017, forbidding him from communicating with her.

United States Attorney Andrew E. Lelling; Assistant Attorney General Brian Benczkowski of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division; and Joseph Bonavolonta, Special Agent in Charge Federal Bureau of Investigation, Boston Field Office, made the announcement. Assistant U.S. Attorney Amy Harman Burkart, Chief of Lelling’s Cyber Crime Unit and Senior Trial Attorney Mona Sedky of the Criminal Division’s Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section prosecuted the case.