MIAMI (AP) — A California home supervisor was sentenced to a year in federal prison for sending a lot more than 200 vile on the internet messages to a father of a teenage girl who died in the 2018 massacre at Parkland’s Marjory Stoneman Douglas Substantial University.
James Catalano, 62 of Fresno, was sentenced Friday by U.S. District Judge Robert Scola in Miami after pleading guilty in March to cyberstalking. Prosecutors termed the messages he sent Fred Guttenberg “callous and cruel.”
Guttenberg’s 14-yr-previous daughter Jaime Guttenberg was murdered in the Feb. 14, 2018, shooting in Parkland that still left 14 students and three staff members associates useless. Catalano also obtained three yrs probation and need to bear mental health treatment method.
Catalano despatched Guttenberg messages for 8 months setting up in December 2021 that celebrated Jaime Guttenberg’s dying and reveled in the wounds she suffered. He also mocked the sadness and loss Guttenberg feels and directed obscenities, slurs and disturbing insults to him and his daughter.
Catalano informed investigators he was offended at Guttenberg for his outspoken advocacy for more robust gun legal guidelines given that his daughter’s dying. He explained to them he thought Guttenberg was utilizing his daughter’s death “to drive his political agenda” and was “seeking to set (Guttenberg) in look at by sending him the messages.”
“By his very own admission, the defendant was inspired to stalk the sufferer and deliver him heinous messages simply mainly because he disagreed with the victim’s political views,” Assistant U.S. Lawyer Arielle Klepach wrote in courtroom documents. “He capitalized on the victim’s grief and the horrific character of his daughter’s dying in buy to silence him.”
She wrote that Catalano sent similar messages to some others, but he has not been billed in all those situations.
Guttenberg stated Monday that the sentence “is a major deal” and sends a concept to people who cyberstalk the families of capturing victims that they will be caught and punished. He said Decide Scola agreed that when none of the messages contained a immediate menace, in their totality they constituted a person.
Catalano’s attorneys did not immediately return a get in touch with Monday trying to get comment.
The previous pupil who murdered Jaime Guttenberg and the other people is serving a everyday living sentence.
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