Federal government accuses Massachusetts man of brutal cyberstalking, sexual harassment campaign against professor

Federal authorities have arrested a Plymouth “keyboard coward” who they say waged a years-long online campaign to demean, intimidate, threaten and ruin the reputation of a woman who appeared to be a casual acquaintance of theirs.

“Enjoy your exposure, you naughty bimbo. You belong to the internet,” James Florence allegedly wrote under one of his many fake accounts bearing the likeness of the target of the brutal campaign that prosecutors say he has been running since late 2017.

His alleged intentions for the content became clear, as the personally identifiable information he shared about the woman was accompanied by an instruction to, “Post and share her everywhere. Make the (expletive) famous.”

James Florence Jr., 36, of Plymouth, was arrested Wednesday morning and arraigned in federal court in Boston’s Seaport for an initial appearance on a single count of cyberstalking. Judge M. Page Kelley ordered Florence held until a formal detention hearing scheduled for Monday. Florence’s alleged actions could land him in federal prison for up to five years.

“The defendant’s alleged actions provide a chilling window into the dangers of online harassment and cyberstalking in the digital age,” Acting U.S. Attorney Joshua Levy said in a statement. “Using sophisticated technology to manipulate, harass, and publicly humiliate someone over years of experience is not only reprehensible, it is criminal. No one should have to endure the type of relentless harassment and devastating psychological toll that we allege this victim bravely endured.”

“We will continue to use all available resources to protect victims of these crimes and bring justice to keyboard cowards who abuse the digital landscape for their own malicious purposes,” he continued.

The victim, a Massachusetts resident and university professor, was the first to discover that someone was posting photos of her and her underwear on Craigslist’s casual sexual encounters listings without her knowledge or consent, according to an FBI affidavit supporting the charges. The photos of her underwear appeared to have been taken at her former residence, where Florence had at least occasionally attended parties.

The online campaign escalated in 2020, when the victim said she had received messages from multiple accounts on X, then called Twitter, with the same photos of her underwear. A Twitter account was then created to show images of the victim, and the victim’s actual X account was tagged.

“At the time, Victim used Twitter primarily for professional reasons. Victim did not want her professional connections to see the obscene tweets she was tagged in because she felt it would damage her reputation,” FBI Special Agent Laura Macrorie wrote in the affidavit. “As a result, she deleted her Twitter account.”

The harassment intensified when seven different accounts on a pornographic website associated with so-called “revenge porn” began posting photos of her, as well as manipulated images to make her appear nude or partially nude. The affidavit states that the accounts uploaded 128 unique images approximately 687 times.