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Accused Ottawa Cyberbully Facing 181 Charges Apologizes

Posted by samzenpus on from the Workin'-in-the-dark-against-your-fellow-man dept.

Freshly Exhumed writes The day Robert James Campbell quit his job, he went home and started plotting revenge against everyone he felt had wronged him in life. He says he didn't leave his Ottawa apartment for seven months. The online campaign of harassment and hatred he's accused of launching spanned more than a decade. He is accused of creating fake online profiles to destroy reputations in short order, presenting his targets to the world as child predators, members of a Nazi party, exotic dancers and prostitutes. Police roused Campbell on the morning of July 31 and arrested him on 181 charges of criminal harassment, identity theft and defamatory libel. Campbell publicly apologized to his alleged victims and says he has instructed his lawyer to file a guilty plea.

4 of 140 comments (clear)

  1. Right. by Reason58 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Oh, he's sorry alright. Sorry he got caught.

    Remorse is possible for a bad decision made in the heat of the moment. This man, on the other hand, was deliberate and meticulous in his abuse of several people that lasted over a *decade*. These are not the actions of someone who made a mistake, these are the actions of a sociopath.

    1. Re:Right. by maliqua · · Score: 5, Insightful

      because he knows he is guilty and likely will be found guilty, costing the crown less money to convict you provides some leniency

    2. Re:Right. by pla · · Score: 3, Insightful

      You'd never do it to strike a deal with the prosecutor to get a lesser sentence because the evidence they have on you is incontrovertible?

      Entering a guilty plea differs from offering an unsolicited apology. Sure, I might pragmatically enter a guilty plea, but the idea of any sort of sincere apology after engaging in a decade long campaign of harassment? It just doesn't even make sense.

      I don't know if Canada has a version of the "insanity" defense, and I know that very rarely works in the US, but I'd have to say that no sane person would waste that much time systematically trashing their former coworkers over a stupid job. That dude snapped - I'd call his coworkers lucky he didn't literally hunt them down one by one and torture them to death in his basement.

  2. I've been through this by Tempest_2084 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I'm a moderator on a popular forum and I've had something similar done to me by someone who thought I had wronged them (ironically I had nothing to do with what happened to him). Thankfully it only lasted a year or two and they did eventually get caught and stopped. But those two years were really stressful as I discovered that there really isn't much you can do without hard evidence. I can't imagine going through something like this for over 10 years. This guy needs some serious mental help and needs to make some sort of restitution to his victims. A simple "Sorry, I need help" isn't nearly enough. These days your online reputation can be your most important asset. Can you imagine if one of the people he did this to got turned down for a job because their name showed up on a child porn site or pro-Nazi group in a standard background check?