A nasty Internet bully who has targeted realtor Patrick Rocca in the past is again demanding an enormous sum of money to stop a campaign of online harassment. It was two years ago that the same person demanded cash from Rocca and another Leaside man. He failed and went away for a while but now says he wants the equivalent of $500,000 in Canadian money paid in bitcoin. The “pay or die” campaign has a deadline of February 29. Previous deadlines were ignored so new ones were set. The desperate demands seem ridiculous because Rocca has no intention of paying anything. “I’ll never pay this individual a penny and I’m more driven than ever to identify the individual responsible. I won’t let things go away as I did two years ago,” said the real estate agent.
Consultant working with police to find extortionist
The harassment has taken the form of abusive email and fictionalized Instagram pages containing wild libels against Rocca and his son. The baseless posts have been quickly deleted by Instagram’s owner, Facebook. Police and a digital consultant who are helping Rocca think that the perpetrator may not realize the kind of trouble he will face when he’s arrested. He’s playing a dangerous game. “Ultimately, every move that someone makes on the internet leaves a trail of digital bread crumbs that we’ll be able to follow back to the person responsible,” says the consultant. “There have already been a few reckless missteps which have us pointed in a promising direction. We’re committed to working closely with law enforcement to do whatever we can to assist them in their investigation and do our part to identify the harasser.”
