A property supervisor has been sentenced to a 12 months in jail for sending greater than 200 abusive messages to the daddy of a teenage woman who died in a Florida mass capturing.
James Catalano, 62 of Fresno, California was sentenced by US District Judge Robert Scola in Miami after pleading responsible to cyberstalking in March.
Prosecutors mentioned the messages he despatched Fred Guttenberg have been “callous and cruel”.
Mr Guttenberg’s 14-year-old daughter Jaime was murdered by former scholar Nikolas Cruz within the capturing at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland on Valentine’s Day 2018.
Jaime Guttenberg. Pic: Rex/Shutterstock
The assault left 14 college students and three employees members useless.
Catalano additionally acquired three years probation and should bear psychological well being remedy.
He despatched the grieving father messages for eight months, starting in December 2021, celebrating Jaime Guttenberg’s loss of life and reveling within the wounds she suffered.
He additionally mocked Mr Guttenberg’s disappointment and loss in addition to aiming obscenities, slurs and disturbing insults at him and his deceased daughter.
Catalano instructed investigators he was indignant at Mr Guttenberg for his outspoken backing for gun management since his daughter’s loss of life.
He instructed them he believed Mr Guttenberg was utilizing his daughter’s loss of life “to push his political agenda” and was “trying to put him in check by sending him the messages”.
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“By his own admission, the defendant was motivated to stalk the victim and send him heinous messages simply because he disagreed with the victim’s political views,” Assistant US Attorney Arielle Klepach wrote in court docket paperwork.
“He capitalised on the victim’s grief and the horrific nature of his daughter’s death in order to silence him.”
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Ms Klepach wrote that Catalano despatched comparable messages to different folks, however he has not been charged in these instances.
Mr Guttenberg mentioned that the sentence “is a big deal” and sends a message to those that cyberstalk the households of capturing victims that they are going to be caught and punished.
He mentioned Judge Scola agreed that whereas not one of the messages contained a direct menace, of their totality they constituted one.
Catalano’s legal professionals haven’t but commented on the sentence.
Nikolas Cruz is serving a life sentence for the lethal capturing.
Content Source: news.sky.com
