Jury finds man guilty in sex-ad stalking

The cyberstalker told her she could run but she couldn’t hide and that he was going to make her pay for an unspecified slight.

And for several months, it seemed like he was right.

Strange men showed up at her home, her workplace and her mother’s house, asking for her by name and saying they were responding to her kinky Craigslist sex ads. The anonymous stalker forwarded her the disturbing ads, which were made to look like she had posted them herself.

Thursday, jurors took just two hours to find a Palm Beach County landlord guilty of cyberstalking one of his former tenants. The jury found Magdy “Mike” Boutros not guilty of two related child pornography charges.

Boutros, 50, of Lake Worth, was immediately handcuffed and taken into custody in federal court in Miami. He faces a maximum of five years in federal prison and a $250,000 fine when he is sentenced March 30.

He showed no emotion as the verdicts were read aloud in court.

His wife, who was holding their 14-month-old son in her arms, cried and slapped herself hard on the cheek about a dozen times in the courtroom. She wailed and sobbed for several minutes after a court security officer escorted her out into the lobby.

The victim, who was 24 when Boutros stalked her, testified last week that the relentless harassment had a profound effect on her. She was so terrified that she gave up two jobs and felt she had no option but to move out of state. Even after she moved in with her mother in rural Alabama, the stalking continued.

“My life was in ultimate turmoil,” she said. “I was scared to go to work … I was scared to leave my house.”

She was a recent college graduate and struggling financially when she rented a studio apartment in Lake Worth from Boutros for just a few months in late 2011 and early 2012.

Federal prosecutors Lothrop Morris and Ellen Cohen told the jury that Boutros became obsessed with her and wanted revenge after she politely rejected sexual advances from him.

Boutros launched a “high-tech psychological attack” on the young woman to try to humiliate, degrade and destroy her, the prosecution said in closing arguments.

“She’s like a fly in his spiderweb — he has plans for her,” Morris told the jury. “It’s about vengeance for not getting what he wanted … He’s going to destroy her.”

The woman, who wants to be identified only as “Victim 1,” said the stalking began a few months after she moved out and got an apartment with a roommate in West Palm Beach. The stalking continued for several months between November 2012 and June 2013.

Boutros used fake email addresses and software that hid his phone number to send her countless creepy messages, the jury found. He also posted numerous sex ads on Craigslist that were made to look as if they had been placed by the victim.

Many of the ads included sexually graphic photographs of women and invited men to show up for sex with the victim. Several included her workplace and home addresses.

The complicated investigation was handled by the West Palm Beach Police Department and the FBI. The case took several years to prepare because some of the evidence could not be easily extracted from the older electronic devices that were used, according to testimony in the case. Recent developments in forensic investigative software helped investigators find the evidence they needed and criminal charges were filed last year.

Jurors acquitted Boutros on two charges of possessing and distributing child pornography. The charges dealt with one graphic photograph of a young female, which had been posted with several of the ads.

A prosecution expert testified that the photograph was of a minor, but a defense expert testified that the person in the photograph could have been anywhere been from age 16 to the early 30s.

Defense attorneys Tama Kudman and John Cleary mounted an aggressive defense, arguing that Boutros was not guilty and attempting to blame his ex-wife for the stalking.

They tried to persuade jurors that there was reasonable doubt and that Boutros’ ex-wife could have committed the crimes, theorizing that she was jealous while they were going through a difficult divorce.

Prosecutors ridiculed that argument, calling it the “some other dude did it” defense. They presented evidence that several of the stalking incidents happened when the ex-wife was out of state and only Boutros could have committed them.

The device used to carry out most of the stalking and harassment, an iPod Touch stolen from the victim when she was moving out, was found on Boutros’ bedside table during a law enforcement search conducted long after his ex-wife moved out, agents said.

Jurors also heard testimony from a second woman who was stalked and harassed in similar ways after she moved out of an apartment she had rented from Boutros. Though Boutros was not criminally charged in that matter, U.S. District Judge Beth Bloom told jurors they could consider it as possible evidence of a pattern of similar misconduct.

Boutros will likely appeal his conviction, the defense said.

“Certainly the jury got it right with regard to the pornography charges,” Kudman said. “In terms of the stalking count, the motive makes much more sense for the ex-wife to have done it.”

Jurors declined to comment as they left the courthouse following the eightday trial.

The victim, who now lives out of state, was not in court for the verdict.