It was the girl's mother who was anonymously cyber-bullying a teenage girl for two years

The act of creating a fictitious profile or ID on SNS and trying to deceive the other party is called `` catfishing '' and is used as a modus operandi for sex offenders who target children and young people. A 42-year-old woman has been charged with stalking and sending mass harassment emails over a two-year period, targeting two teenagers in Beale City , Isabella County , Michigan, USA. It turned out that she was the victim's mother.

Beal woman arrested in sophisticated catfishing scheme involving daughter – The Morning Sun
https://www.themorningsun.com/2022/12/13/beal-woman-arrested-in-sophisticated-catfishing-scheme-involving-daughter/

Mt. Pleasant woman charged in catfishing scheme involving her daughter – The Morning Sun
https://www.themorningsun.com/2022/12/14/mt-pleasant-woman-charged-in-catfishing-scheme-involving-her-daughter/

Defendant Kendra Rikali (pictured below) sent her daughter and her boyfriend harassing messages via email and social media while hiding her identity. It seems that the materials that summarize the contents of the mails sent over the two years are about 349 pages in total.

According to prosecutor Dave Barberi, Rikari disguised his age by using youth slang and abbreviations, and used a VPN to disguise his location and traveled from as far afield as Florida. He said he was pretending to be sending an email.

The incident was discovered in December 2021, and the investigation began when Rikari's daughter and her boyfriend consulted with the school. However, an investigation by local officials found that most of the problems occurred outside the school premises and had nothing to do with school devices. For this reason, in January 2022, the city of Beale decided to seek help from law enforcement agencies.

During the investigation, the local law enforcement agency suspected the possibility that Rikari was involved, but due to the limited computer crime investigation ability, they could not obtain evidence, so in April 2022, they cooperated with the FBI. It is said that it is Aoi. The FBI finally identified the IP address used to send the message and found that it belonged to Likari defendant.

After that, when the law enforcement agency asked the defendant Rikari for details, he was arrested because he admitted all the charges. After that, it is released on bail of 5000 dollars (about 700,000 yen). Likari was subsequently charged with two counts of 'stalking minors,' two counts of 'computer-based crimes,' and one count of 'obstruction of justice.' Regarding this crime of obstruction of justice, the prosecutor's office claims that 'During the investigation, the defendant Rikari pretended to be another minor and tried to disrupt the investigation.'

Rikari could be sentenced to up to 20 years in prison, as computer crimes carry 10 years in prison and stalking minors and obstructing justice each carry 5 years in prison. In addition, Rikari was a coach of the girls' basketball club at the school where her daughter attended, but she was dismissed as a result of the incident.