Former Hawaii Island man sentenced in cyberstalking case

HONOLULU — A former Big Island man was sentenced Monday to 97 months in prison followed by three years of supervised release for cyberstalking and obstruction of justice offenses committed in Hawaii County.

John B. Hart, 54, of Louisville, Ken., was sentenced by Senior U.S. District Court Judge Susan Oki Mollway of the U.S. District Court for the District of Hawaii.

Hart pleaded guilty on April 12.

According to court documents, from May 2022 to August 2022, Hart, while living on Hawaii Island, engaged in a cyberstalking campaign to harass and intimidate his former girlfriend, Jane Doe 1; her former partner, John Doe 1; and her then-partner, John Doe 2.

The three victims were residents of Hawaii County at the time of the crimes.

Hart frequently posed as John Doe 1 while targeting his other two victims, and also pretended to target himself in an attempt to deflect attention and falsely implicate John Doe 1.

Hart hid his true identity by using multiple “burner apps” to generate dozens of fake phone numbers he used to message his victims, and falsely reported the conduct to local and federal law enforcement authorities and others, claiming that John Doe 1 was responsible and posed a genuine and serious threat to Hart and others.

Two days after being questioned by federal agents, Hart deleted one of his personal e-mail accounts in an attempt to obstruct the ongoing investigation.

Hart pleaded guilty in April to three counts of cyberstalking and one count of obstruction of justice. Hart has been detained since his April 2023 arrest in Colorado.

In his plea agreement, Hart admitted to posing as John Doe 1 and committing acts directed at each of his three victims, including the following:

— sending communications to Jane Doe 1 criticizing her and encouraging her to kill herself, and advising her that he had posed as Jane Doe 1 online and solicited strange men to engage in “gang bang” and other sexual activities with her;

— sending communications to Jane Doe 1, her family members, and her associates claiming that he had followed Jane Doe 1 and John Doe 2 when they traveled to Washington state, and falsely asserting that John Doe 2 was a human trafficker who may have kidnapped Jane Doe 1 while she was in Washington;

— sending communications to Jane Doe 1’s family members, John Doe 2, and their associates that contained express or implied threats to kill, kidnap, rape, and otherwise injure Jane Doe 1;

— creating online dating profiles in Jane Doe 1’s name, and soliciting men to date and/or engage in casual sexual encounters with her, and sending messages causing multiple men to appear at Jane Doe 1’s workplace for dates and/or sex;

— sending communications to John Doe 2 criticizing Jane Doe 1 and encouraging, directing, and threatening John Doe 2 to terminate his relationship with her;

— sending communications to John Doe 2 claiming to have sexual photos and videos of Jane Doe 1 and threatening to post them online and distribute them to her friends and family;

— purchasing and shipping sex toys to one or more residences of John Doe 2’s family members, using Jane Doe 1’s name and credit card without authorization in the purchase order, and sending taunting communications to John Doe 2 about the purchases; and

— spray-painting Jane Doe 1’s vehicle and placing metal spikes on the ground near her tires, while her vehicle was parked outside of her place of employment/training.

During Monday’s sentencing, Mollway stated that Hart had done “incalculable harm” to his victims and that the impact of Hart’s crimes had been “tremendous.”

She further noted that Hart’s crimes involved a “huge amount of deception,” Hart had “gravely incriminated” an innocent person while portraying himself as a victim, and it could not “be overemphasized how harmful and serious his conduct was.”

“John Hart engaged in a relentless cyber-campaign to harass and terrorize his ex-girlfriend and others in her life, masking his own identity and attempting to frame an innocent man in the process,” said U.S. Attorney Clare E. Connors in a statement. “(Monday’s) sentence represents justice for Hart’s victims and will help deter others who might seek to hide behind the perceived anonymity of the internet to target their victims.”