A Hawaii man is accused of terrorizing a woman and father in Utah with an elaborate cyberstalking scheme that included sending hundreds of unwanted repairmen, food deliveries and even prostitutes to their front door over the course of many months.
Loren Okamura appeared before a judge on Wednesday at the U.S. District Court in Honolulu, where he waived his right to a detention hearing in Hawaii, the Star Advertiser reported. The 44-year-old suspect will remain behind bars in the island state until his trial in Utah.
Okamura was arrested earlier this month and is facing two counts of cyberstalking, two counts of transporting an individual to engage in prostitution and a count of interstate threats, according to court documents.
The male victim, Walt Gilmore, estimated that between August 2018 and March more than 500 people turned up at their home in North Salt Lake City — allegedly at Okumra’s behest.
He told Hawaii News Now it all started off fairly harmlessly — with food deliveries and plumbers showing up at their home
As time went on, however, the amount of people knocking on the door drastically increased. Sometimes they would see as many as 20 unwanted visitors in a day.
Gilmore added that people with unsavory backgrounds began showing up too.
“They’re looking for drugs,” he said. “Some are prostitutes.”
Okamura was also accused of making threatening phone calls and emails to the man’s adult daughter.
“Sleep with one eye open and keep looking over your shoulder you crazy b— we are coming for you and your dumba— daddy and crazy a—mommy,” he said in one note.
“You should just kill yourself and do your family a favor already,” Okumra said in a voicemail.
In June and July 2018, he also allegedly transported the Utah woman he’s accused of stalking to Hawaii with the intent that she would engage in prostitution, CNN reported.
“It’s really extreme stalking,” U.S. Attorney John Huber said, without revealing a motive.
“I’ll tell you what made this an important case for Utah is that a family was tormented with hundreds of incidents and a course of conduct that really changed their life and even their own neighborhood — so the victimization expanded beyond a person or home to an entire neighborhood. We’re not going to let that stand.”
Authorities said it took them nearly 15 hours to find the suspect because he had no home address and used a phone app to “spoof location data.” They eventually took him into custody in a supermarket.
NEW YORK TIMES DAILY