We'd like to remind you that, if you're unfortunate enough to have a cheating wife, it's not a terribly bright idea to try intimidating her lover out of town with threatening e-mails - especially not if you live in Illinois. Ask Porfirios Liapis, about whom we reported to you last August. He was convicted April 16 of violating Illinois' cyberstalking law for doing just that to a DesPlaines man.
Liapis - the first defendant tried under Illinois's cyberstalking law - claimed only to have sent fifteen such e-mails to the man who was described as his former best friend, "to shake him, not scare or harm him." But, apparently, a jury had a hard time believing such messages as "Anticipation of death is worse than death itself" and "You have two choices, a plane out of here or a hot bath with your wrists slashed," not to mention "Call me the angel of revenge" and "Your time is running out," was only trying to scare the man.
Prosecutor Patricia Fix, who heads the state attorney's office's cybercrime division, had said Liapis "didn't say, 'Stop seeing a married woman'" or talk to the man directly about his two affairs with Liapis's now-former wife, which Liapis himself acknowledged. Defense attorney Louis Piossos tried and failed to press for a "directed verdict," after arguing in summation that the state didn't prove Liapis knowingly sent at least two threatening messages that terrified the man.
Judge Mary Schostock rejected Piossos's motion. The jury also didn't necessarily buy Piossos's argument that Liapsis was the victim because the man preyed on others' wives.
As AVN Online reported last August, Liapsis was tracked down by way of investigators tracing records from Internet service providers. Illinois passed its cyberstalk law in 2001, and lawmakers predicted more such prosecutions as more became aware of the law.
Liapis was convicted on two felony counts and faces a maximum three years in prison on each count or thirty months probation, when he's sentenced May 23.
