UT- Husband throws more than mere accusations

5-28-2009 Utah:

OGDEN -- Police are investigating a rare case of harassment: fake sex offender registry notices followed by a bucket of feces.

The target was a man in an Ogden apartment complex who had a one-night stand with a married co-worker in November.

The carefully plotted revenge of the husband came first on April 30, when more than 30 notices were tied to doorknobs in the victim's apartment complex accusing him of membership on the state's sex offender registry for rape of a 5-year-old.

"He's not a sex offender," Ogden Police Lt. Loring Draper said. "That wasn't a very good thing to do."

The bright orange fliers bore an exact copy of the apartment complex's logo and included half a dozen names of offenders who are really on the sex offender registry, complete with the distance of their residence from the apartment complex, just as the state's sex offender registry Web site lists them.

"Whoever did this is going to be damn lucky if they don't get sued," Draper said early on in the investigation.

"There is a criminal defamation charge in the state code that makes this a class B misdemeanor, up to six months in jail, for disseminating info known to be false and knowing it will expose the subject to 'hatred, contempt or ridicule,' is how it reads."

Staff at the apartment complex noticed the fliers before the victim did, called police, and were able to take down about 30 of them and notify the victim of what had happened.

The apartment manager that same morning then put out fliers on all the buildings in the complex noting the prior notices were fakes and advising that a police investigation was under way.

A week later, around midnight May 7, the victim found a plastic bucket tossed on his second-floor apartment balcony, spewing what appeared to be human feces. The liquefied dung was also all over his car.

At the time the 29-year-old victim, who is raising a 3-year-old daughter, was understandably angry.

"I'm going to take this as far as I can, prosecution, hire a lawyer, file a lawsuit, whatever I have to do," he said.

Police were called again and a suspect was formally identified as the betrayed husband, who was interviewed.

Two weeks later, with no further incidents, feelings have since abated somewhat on both sides, with a happy ending pending, apparently.

The victim has received an apology in writing. "I can understand why he's upset, I made a mistake with his wife," he said this week.

"I don't need to make things any harder for him. And he's got some young kids, too."

He hopes the case can be closed without official charges filed.

Police wouldn't comment on the eventual outcome of their investigation.

The hand-written apology was delivered by the investigator in the case, Ogden Community Police Officer Tim Shelstead.

Any further contact by the author of the apology with the victim in the case could become a witness-tampering charge, police said.

That's a felony that could put the offender in Utah State Prison, not just the county jail.

"I can't recall a case quite like this," Draper said, citing the elaborate work on the phony sex offender registry notices.

"I've heard of people threatening to do stuff like this, but not actually doing it. I guess it's good that feces is all he threw." ..News Source.. by Tim Gurrister, Standard-Examiner staff