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Description: Los Angeles, California criminal law lawyer represented Defendant charged with cyberstalking multiple young women in California in a “sextortion” campaign he waged while he was an active-duty member of the U.S. Marine Corps.

From May 2019 to February 2021, Johao Miguel Chavarri, aka Michael Frito, 26, of Torrance, stalked and sent anonymous threatening communications to numerous victims.

Chavarri, often using the name “Frito,” contacted victims on social media platforms, including Instagram, Snapchat, and Twitter, complimented their appearance and/or their publicly posted photos, and suggested a relationship in which he would pay the victim to send him photos or videos. Some of the victims initially agreed to Chavarri’s requests and sent him nude, sexually explicit, or compromising photos. When victims refused Chavarri’s initial request for photos, refused to send him additional photos or videos, or otherwise refused to continue to communicate with him online, Chavarri began to harass, threaten, and extort the victims using numerous online accounts. In most cases, he threatened to publish sexual photos and videos of the victims online or on well-known pornography websites and/or to distribute the sexual photos or videos to the victims’ boyfriends, friends, families, or employers, who he would often specifically identify by name.

Chavarri was ordered to pay a $15,000 fine and serve three years of supervised release.

Assistant Attorney General Kenneth A. Polite, Jr. of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division; Acting U.S. Attorney Stephanie S. Christensen for the Central District of California; Assistant Director Luis Quesada of the FBI’s Criminal Investigative Division; and Supervisory Special Agent Adam Smith of the FBI Los Angeles Field Office made the announcement.

The FBI Los Angeles Field Office, Long Beach Resident Agency, investigated the case, with assistance from the Naval Criminal Investigative Service.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Lauren Restrepo for the Central District of California and Senior Trial Attorney Mona Sedky of the Criminal Division’s Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section prosecuted the case.

18:2261A(2)(B), 2261(b)(5): Stalking

(a) Offenses.—

(1) Travel or conduct of offender.—A person who travels in interstate or foreign commerce or enters or leaves Indian country or is present within the special maritime and territorial jurisdiction of the United States with the intent to kill, injure, harass, or intimidate a spouse, intimate partner, or dating partner, and who, in the course of or as a result of such travel or presence, commits or attempts to commit a crime of violence against that spouse, intimate partner, or dating partner, shall be punished as provided in subsection (b).

(2) Causing travel of victim.—A person who causes a spouse, intimate partner, or dating partner to travel in interstate or foreign commerce or to enter or leave Indian country by force, coercion, duress, or fraud, and who, in the course of, as a result of, or to facilitate such conduct or travel, commits or attempts to commit a crime of violence against that spouse, intimate partner, or dating partner, shall be punished as provided in subsection (b).

(b) Penalties.—A person who violates this section or section 2261A shall be fined under this title, imprisoned—

(1) for life or any term of years, if death of the victim results;

(2) for not more than 20 years if permanent disfigurement or life threatening bodily injury to the victim results;

(3) for not more than 10 years, if serious bodily injury to the victim results or if the offender uses a dangerous weapon during the offense;

(4) as provided for the applicable conduct under chapter 109A if the offense would constitute an offense under chapter 109A (without regard to whether the offense was committed in the special maritime and territorial jurisdiction of the United States or in a Federal prison); and

(5) for not more than 5 years, in any other case,

or both fined and imprisoned.

(6) Whoever commits the crime of stalking in violation of a temporary or permanent civil or criminal injunction, restraining order, no-contact order, or other order described in section 2266 of title 18, United States Code, shall be punished by imprisonment for not less than 1 year.

Outcome: Defendant was sentenced to five years in prison.

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Defendant's Experts:

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