PORTLAND, Maine — A 35-year-old Pennsylvania man accused of using the Internet to harass and intimidate a Canadian woman studying in Maine pleaded guilty of interstate stalking during a hearing Tuesday in U.S. District Court.
Makwan Jaff of Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, and who is an Iraqi national, faces up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine, according to court documents.
Jaff is scheduled to be sentenced in January.
He remains free on $10,000 unsecured bail. Conditions include electronic monitoring and house arrest, according to information posted on the court’s electronic case filing system.
Jaff’s jury trial was set to begin in October.
Federal prosecutors say the incidents that led to the charges began two years ago, while Jaff and his victim were attending the University of Medicine and Health Sciences in Basseterre, Saint Kitts and Nevis, located in the West Indies.
The 25-year-old woman was a South African national whose legal residence was in Canada, an affidavit filed in federal court in Portland said.
In September 2013, Jaff told the woman in person he loved her, the affidavit said. She never saw him again, but on Feb. 11, 2014, he began sending her daily harassing and threatening messages.
Jaff reportedly created about five Facebook accounts in the victim’s name or variations of her name, with added pejorative words and posted pictures of her in them without her knowledge or permission.
Once the Facebook accounts were deleted by the victim, Jaff sent threatening email and Facebook private messages to her and her immediate family.
During these communications from St. Kitts, Jaff threatened to harm the victim and another classmate who were attending school in Scarborough in May and June 2014. He threatened to come to Maine and threatened to harm her family in Canada.
Jaff’s conduct caused substantial emotional distress to the victim and her immediate family, the prosecution said.
Jaff was arrested on a federal warrant in North Carolina in August of last year, according to court documents and previously published reports. He was charged with stalking in U.S. District Court in Portland, according to information posted on the court system’s website.
The investigation that led to Tuesday’s guilty plea was conducted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.