Protective Orders and Charges for Threatening Texts From Spoofed Numbers

Attorney Answer

Your friend has a route, and it is probably not the one she has been pointed toward: because this man is not a family or household member, the filing she needs is a civil protection order under Conn. Gen. Stat. § 46b-16a — not a domestic violence restraining order under § 46b-15.

That distinction is why these applications get bounced. Conn. Gen. Stat. § 46b-15, now titled "Relief for victim of domestic violence," is available only to a family or household member as defined in Conn. Gen. Stat. § 46b-38a who is the victim of domestic violence as defined in Conn. Gen. Stat. § 46b-1(b). It offers discretionary ex parte relief and a hearing within fourteen days, or seven days where the application indicates firearms and an ex parte order issues. If the man harassing her is an ex-partner or household member, that is her statute. If he is not, Conn. Gen. Stat. § 46b-16a is: it allows any person who has been the victim of sexual abuse, sexual assault or stalking, and who does not qualify to apply under § 46b-15, to apply to the Superior Court for a civil protection order, including ex parte relief on a finding of imminent danger. Its definition of stalking is written for exactly this situation — two or more wilful acts of harassing, following, surveilling, monitoring or sending unwanted messages "directly, indirectly or through a third person, by any method, device or other means" causing reasonable fear for physical safety. Spoofed numbers are a method, device or means. They are inside the definition, not outside it.

On the criminal side, the police answer she got confuses proof with the law. Conn. Gen. Stat. § 53a-181d makes stalking in the second degree, a class A misdemeanor, a knowing course of conduct directed at or concerning a specific person that would cause a reasonable person to fear for their own or a third person's physical safety, or to suffer emotional distress. "Course of conduct" means two or more acts and expressly includes acts committed "directly, indirectly or through a third party, by any action, method, device or means, including, but not limited to, electronic or social media," of following, monitoring, threatening, harassing, or communicating with or about a person. Note the test is objective — what would cause a reasonable person to fear — and note the emotional distress prong, which matters when nobody has been touched. Conn. Gen. Stat. § 53a-183 makes harassment in the second degree, a class C misdemeanor, a communication made with intent to harass, terrorize or alarm another person and for no legitimate purpose, by "electronic mail or text message or any other electronically sent message, whether by digital media account, messaging program or application," in a manner likely to cause terror, intimidation or alarm. Subsection (b) allows the offense to be charged either where the communication originated or where it was received — which is precisely the provision that matters when nobody knows where the sender is.

That the numbers cannot be traced is a proof problem, not an elements problem. Identity gets proved by content that only one person could know, by timing that lines up with his movements, by references to her children, by the pattern across incidents, and sometimes by records a subpoena reaches that a police request never asked for.

What you can do

1. Preserve everything now. Screenshot each message with the sending number and the timestamp visible, and back the images up off the phone. Do not delete threads to "get away from it." 2. Keep a single log: date, time, number, what was said, where she was, who else saw it. 3. Apply for a civil protection order under Conn. Gen. Stat. § 46b-16a at the Superior Court clerk's office. It is a self-file application, court staff can hand her the packet, and she should ask specifically about ex parte relief on a finding of imminent danger. 4. Go back to the police with the log and ask for a written incident report and a case number for each incident. Ask them to consider Conn. Gen. Stat. §§ 53a-181d and 53a-183, and point out the venue rule in § 53a-183(b) if they say the sender's location is unknown. 5. Contact her carrier in writing and ask them to preserve records for the relevant dates. Records get purged; a preservation request buys time for a subpoena in the civil case. 6. Tell the children's school and anyone at her workplace who controls access, and give them a copy of any order once it issues. 7. Do not respond to the messages, and do not have anyone respond on her behalf.