According to local news sources, a Michigan mother, who was a basketball coach at her daughter’s school, is accused of catfishing and relentlessly harassing both her daughter and another teenager, allegedly the girl’s boyfriend.
Kendra Licari, 42, was accused by police of stalking two minors, using a computer to conduct a felony, and obstruction of justice on one count, according to MLive. On December 12, Licari was arrested and taken into custody in Isabella County District Court.
Licari is charged with sending her daughter and her daughter’s alleged boyfriend 349 pages of harassing text and social media messages while using a VPN to hide the source of the communications, according to David Barberi, an Isabella County prosecutor.
“By and large it was mostly just harassing-type text messages, demeaning, demoralizing, and just mean texts,” Isabella County prosecutor David Barberi told WKRC.
Licari created a fake identity in order to make it seem like the messages were coming from one of her daughter’s acquaintances. When she would send messages to her daughter, she would use abbreviations which were commonly used by kids her daughter’s age.
Following a cyberbullying complaint submitted to the Beal City school administration in December 2021, school personnel started looking into the harassment of Licari’s daughter. Licari was the girls’ basketball coach at the school when the complaint was filed, and when the basketball season ended, Licari was fired.
The school requested an investigation from the Isabella County Sheriff’s Department in January 2022. The cyberbullying took place between September 2021 and February 2022, according to court records. Licari confessed when confronted, though it was not clear why she had done it.
Licari was granted release from custody on Monday after posting a $5,000 bail. Stalking a juvenile and obstructing justice are all five-year felonies, while using a computer to commit a crime carries a 10-year sentence. Her next court date is set for December 29, 2022.
Turns out that even though the mother is the one who complained to authorities about the cyberbullying after her daughter told her about it, she was the origin of the attacks.
Cyberbullying is not only harassment; it’s a crime.