SEATTLE, WA — Given the moralizing that comes out of the state of Washington about adult businesses, one might imagine that the state’s elected officials and their support staff would have some of the highest morals of the nation. That may well be true, so long as telephone harassment and impersonating another person on a porn site is considered moral. Jonathan W. Milstein, a state assistant attorney general is scheduled for arraignment in King County District Court on August 5th concerning the telephone harassment of a former co-worker of his wife — which resulted in her receiving calls inquiring about sexual services.
Classy.
According to the Seattle Press-Intelligencer, the object of Milstein’s distain received somewhere between 25 and 30 calls between Christmas day 2006 and May 2008 from horny individuals and couples hoping to meet up for a sex date. The callers insisted that they had met the woman previously on adult websites such as Adult Friend Finder and Fling.com, where they claimed to have arranged a sexual encounter with her.
Having no recollection of making such dates or visiting such sites, the woman in question complained to the police in April 2007 and received an FBI referral. The case was opened by the Bureau two months later and several of the callers were located.
Discussion with the callers – who ranged from a couple in Tacoma to individuals in New York, Florida and California — revealed that they had visited a variety of online profiles claiming to belong to the woman. On July 30th, Seattle police obtained a warrant to search Milstein’s Kirkland home for evidence of identity theft and telephone harassment.
During the July 31st search, a laptop, 16 CDs, a USB drive, two digital cameras, a Minolta 35 mm camera, some paperwork and notes were taken into possession. A federal grand jury subpoenaed Adult Friend Finder and Yahoo.com for records related to email accounts associated with the false profiles and police discovered that the profiles had been accessed at least 138 times from Milstein’s Comcast account. Forensic investigations of the seized laptop revealed that there had been a “conscious effort to eliminate records of current internet use on the laptop,” according to legal papers.
When presented with the assistant attorney general’s name, the victim recognized him as a former neighbor and the husband of KING/5 television reporter Deborah Feldman, a former fellow employee.
Although Feldman is not considered a suspect, her husband has agreed to resign and take accrued vacation time until his August 5th arraignment hearing. Telephone harassment is a gross misdemeanor in Washington, with punishment of up to one year in jail.
