A Brooklyn woman whose journalist ex-boyfriend called in bomb threats in her name as part of a twisted plot had reported him for revenge porn and other harassment almost two dozen times before he was finally arrested, she said in a report published Tuesday.
Francesca Rossi told The Associated Press that law enforcement didn’t collar her jilted ex, Juan Thompson, until almost a year after she started reporting him — only after he set off a national panic by threatening a dozen Jewish community centers in early 2017.
“It went on for months. I thought I was going to die, and no one could help me,” Rossi said. “In the end, the only way that my abuse was legitimized is because he went after such a large community of people and because there was so much hysteria over it.”
Thompson, 31, of St. Louis was sentenced to five years in prison in December 2017. According to the FBI, the disgraced former journalist unleashed his reign of terror after Rossi broke up with him.
At his sentencing, Rossi, 33, gave a scathing victim-impact statement saying her ex “devoted an entire year to ruining her life,” calling in the threats under her name, threatening to make nude pictures of her public and falsely reporting her for kiddie porn.
Police officials told AP that Rossi’s personal allegations against Thompson didn’t go anywhere because there was insufficient evidence to support charges.
Experts said her case is an example of how ill-equipped authorities are at handling cyber-crime, even with revenge-porn laws getting passed.
“The response by and large is: Ignore it, and turn off your computer,” said Danielle Citron, University of Maryland professor and author of “Hate Crimes in Cyberspace.”
But Rossi couldn’t ignore it, she said.
The social worker said Thompson, who was then working as a journalist for the Intercept, moved in to her Brooklyn apartment after almost two years of dating.
She said she quickly learned that Thompson was posing as her exes and sending her harassing texts to try to control her.
“Juan was going through all my stuff, and I had no idea,” she said. “He somehow gained access. I never gave him access to any of my passwords, but he had everything on me.”
Things only got worse once she broke up with him, she said.
He called, e-mailed and texted her relentlessly, sometimes posing as others, terrorized her family — including her 92-year-old grandmother — and even called and wrote her office, she said.
He also trashed her on social media and posted her information on a Web site where men promote violence against women.
“Technology gave him utter access to me,” she said. “Every time my phone buzzed, I felt sick. I mean, I thought he was going to kill me. I felt like my life was over.”
She couldn’t get a restraining order because she didn’t have his address, and cops at her local precinct closed her harassment case against him in Oct. 2016, AP said.
Rossi’s case was especially complex because Thompson used 25 different devices allowing him to mask his identity, making evidence gathering difficult, officials said.
Cops told Rossi they couldn’t help her until the threats became more severe, she said.
Meanwhile, the NYPD was investigating her for threats Thompson had made in her name.
Then, Thompson threatened to bomb dozens of Jewish community centers and was arrested in St. Louis. He pleaded guilty to hoax threats and cyberstalking.
The creep apologized to Rossi at his sentencing hearing, saying “I screwed up royally.”
Rossi wore a T-Shirt that read: “Believe women” in the courtroom.
“The police diminished my abuse because my life-threatening attacks came from phones and computers,” she said. “This is what domestic violence looks like now.”