Rule number one in ending relationships: If you’re going through a pretty rough breakup, don’t make things worse by doing something incredibly insane to try and win your ex back (or get him or her arrested). A woman in Michigan apparently did not get the memo – her way of dealing with heartache involved orchestrating a year-long Facebook harassment targeting herself using her ex’s details and making it appear like he and his new girlfriend were stalking and harassing her.
After filing eight separate reports to the Kent County Sheriff’s Department between November 2011 and December 2012 complaining about stalking, harassment, assault, and home invasion, 52 year-old Cheryl Nelson finally confessed that everything was a big fat lie. According to MLive, she admitted to creating a Facebook profile using her ex-boyfriend Kevin Haarsma’s details to make it seem like his new girlfriend was sending her threats via the social networking site.
Last August, Nelson reported that she had received several life-threatening letters taped to her front door and also called to report harassment, leading to an inquiry by Kent County Sheriff’s Detective Jason Russo. While investigation was ongoing, a detective from the Ottawa County Sheriff’s Department received a complaint from Haarsma, shedding light on Nelson’s stalker tendencies. A search warrant was served, causing Nelson to surrender her computer as well as the truth.
“Nelson made (an) admission that she had been falsely reporting crimes because she was not able to let go of her relationship with Kevin,” Russo wrote in an affidavit for probable cause, as reported by MLive. “Evidence shows that Nelson used her computer to set up false Facebook accounts using Kevin Haarsma’s personal information … Nelson used this account to make it appear that she was being stalked and harassed by Kevin’s new girlfriend by posting threatening messages.”
The fact that Nelson has past transgressions using counterfeit checks in the state of Florida certainly isn’t helping her case, but prosecutors are willing to overlook her past offenses and charge her as a first-time offender if she pleads guilty to two separate criminal counts of filing a false report of a felony and unlawful posting of a message. She has time to decide about taking the deal before her case is brought to the Kent County Circuit Court.
