FBI arrests Miami Springs man accused of long-distance cyberstalking
The FBI has arrested Robert Rodriguez, 53, of Miami Springs, who was charged on June 3 with cyberstalking, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida.
A criminal complaint unsealed in Miami federal court on June 2 says Rodriguez previously had a romantic relationship with the victim, a woman from Medellín, Colombia.
After the relationship ended, Rodriguez harassed the victim and her new boyfriend, by making “threatening phone calls, communicating harassing social media messages, and posting nude photos of the victim on multiple fake social media profiles without the victim’s consent,” authorities allege.
The complaint says that Rodriguez “threatened that he would kill the victim’s children, her family, her dog, and then kill her last.”
From July 7 to Aug. 14, 2020, the victim and her boyfriend, a resident of Virginia, received “over fifty harassing phone calls from various numbers, and the caller typically used vulgar language before ending the call,” the criminal complaint said.
Because each call had a similar pattern, and the lines were later disconnected, police believe the caller used a spoofing application, the complaint said. Spoofing technology allows a person to make a phone call appear to originate from a different number on a caller ID.
Law enforcement preserved and obtained subscriber information for 10 Instagram accounts, and each account posted or sent nude photos of the victim, the federal complaint said, with names that included “@bigboy33168” and “@_canes4life_.”
Along with the nude photos, Rodriguez posted the victim’s real name, cell phone number, and a link to her marketing business website, said the complaint. The social media accounts suggest that the victim is a prostitute who offers sexual services and invites viewers to call the number, an FBI special agent wrote in the complaint.
FBI agents interviewed Rodriguez, last year, and he initially denied creating the accounts, but then later admitted creating six accounts and posting nude photos of the victim, saying “he drank heavily due to personal problems and depression since he lost his job,” the complaint said.
An FBI special response team “made contact” with Rodriguez in a pre-dawn raid at his home on June 3, along the 500 block of Palmetto Dr., a redacted Miami Springs police report said.
A spokesperson for Miami’s FBI field office did not return an email from the Herald seeking comment.
Last week, a U.S. Magistrate ordered Rodriguez to remain in jail “based on danger to the community,” court minutes said. Rodriguez is currently an inmate at the Miami federal detention center, according to the Bureau of Prisons.
Rodriguez does not yet have an attorney listed on the court’s website for this case.
This article was produced with the assistance of the Florida Center for Government Accountability, a nonprofit legal and journalism program advocating public access to local government.
Theo Karantsalis can be reached at karantsalis@bellsouth.net.
