LOS ANGELES – An Orange County man was sentenced today to 24 months in federal prison for stalking a professional online gamer during a long-running harassment campaign.
Evan Baltierra, 30, of Trabuco Canyon, was sentenced by United States District Judge Fernando M. Olguin, who also ordered him to pay $2,544 in restitution.
Baltierra pleaded guilty in July 2022 to one count of stalking. He has been in federal custody since his arrest in September 2022 for violating the terms of his pretrial release by continuing to harass the victim.
Baltierra met the victim, a prominent professional gamer, at a gaming convention in Anaheim in November 2019. After this meeting, Baltierra asked to meet the victim in her hometown in Canada, which made her feel uncomfortable. After the victim blocked Baltierra on various social media accounts, Baltierra created hundreds of social media accounts to send the victim threatening messages. One message sent to the victim via Twitter in January 2021 read in part, “[t]imes ticking…waiting for the right opportunity.”
In October 2020, Baltierra hired an unknown third party to create multiple images of the victim that placed her face onto pornographic images. From November 2020 to March 2022, Baltierra posted the photoshopped images to multiple pornographic websites and internet forums. He also sent the images to the victim’s friends and family. Baltierra also posted links to the images on various social media websites and told others online to search for the victim’s name to see naked pictures of her.
The victim obtained a temporary restraining order against Baltierra in January 2021. After the protective order was served on him, Baltierra began posting the victim’s personal information – including her real name and city of residence, which were listed on the protective order – to social media websites and during her live video game streams. Baltierra also posted the victim’s Twitter handle to pornographic websites along with the photoshopped nude images he had created.
During the victim’s live streams of video games, Baltierra used multiple accounts to continually post harassing messages. Baltierra’s spamming of the victim forced her to stop streaming in February 2021.
In June 2021, two months after Baltierra and the victim reached a settlement in which he agreed to not contact her or her associates in exchange for the victim dissolving the temporary restraining order, Baltierra called the victim’s local police department. In that phone call, Baltierra requested the police conduct a welfare check of the victim by lying to the police that the victim had made online threats to commit suicide. Baltierra also attempted to obtain the victim’s home address during that phone call. The police responded to the victim’s home in response to Baltierra’s call.
From January 2022 to March 2022, Baltierra sent threatening messages to the victim via various social media accounts, including one messages that read, “get a casket ready.” In March 2022, Baltierra wrote a letter to the parents of the victim’s boyfriend, which stated, in part, that the situation was going to end badly for her.
Baltierra continued to harass the victim after the FBI searched his residence, after he was criminally charged in this case, and after he pleaded guilty to a felony offense and was free on bond pending sentencing.
“Baltierra continued to post fake nude photographs of [the victim] and appeared to attempt to contact her online, leading to his arrest in September of 2022,” prosecutors wrote in a sentencing memorandum.
The FBI investigated this matter.
Assistant United States Attorney Jake D. Nare of the Santa Ana Branch Office prosecuted this case.
