Accused Ottawa Cyberbully Facing 181 Charges Apologizes

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.

Comments

so he's with the Media?

[Anonymous Coward]

sounds like the MO of any "reporter" these days, filling out the ideological biases of their employer.

Traditional crimes

[Anonymous Coward]

Notice that they didn't have to invent any new charges for this just because it was on the Internet.
Current law covers all this sort of thing.

Re:Traditional crimes

[maliqua]

Canada's legal system is based on enforcing the spirit of the law rather than the letter of the law which allows us a bit more flexibility for circumstances that were unanticipated when the laws were created.

Re:Traditional crimes

[JMJimmy]

Common-law advises Canadian law, it does not dictate it. If anything the US has a greater obligation under treaty law though the courts often choose to ignore that part of the US constitution. maliqua was right, spirit of the law comes before common-law.

Also, this guy is NUTS for pleading guilty - the law is a complete violation of freedom of expression rights.

Re:Traditional crimes

[gatfirls]

Free expression includes this?

Anonymously emailing false comments that a woman was having marital problems
Suggesting another woman had an abortion instead of a miscarriage
Creating a fake Facebook profile of a man whom he said was abused as a child
Falsely suggesting a man had committed crimes and that information was sent to relatives outside the country
Anonymously mailing false comments that a man supported the Nazi party and was a pedophile
Making false claims that a woman had produced pornography and engaged in bizarre sexual acts
Creating a false online profile suggesting a woman worked as an exotic dancer

Re:Traditional crimes

[Massacrifice]

Backward, no. Different, yes. Some call it the best of both worlds - french inherited civil law is very precise, allowing clear and fair resolution of conflicts.

Quebec law is unique in Canada because Quebec is the only province in Canada to have a juridical legal system (pertaining to the administration of justice) under which civil matters are regulated by French-heritage civil law. Public law, criminal law and other federal law operate according to Canadian common law.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Q...

Re:Traditional crimes

[bsDaemon]

I think the term you are looking for is 'civil law', not 'letter of the law'. US legal system at the federal level is heavily influenced by common law, as it is in most states. States which cover areas originally colonized by France or Spain have a tradition of civil law.

https://www.law.berkeley.edu/l...
http://www.economist.com/blogs...

The history of common law in the US is why you'll hear in trial coverage or in shows like law & order, lawyers will use precedents when raising their objections or filing motions. This is usually called 'case law', as it is law which hasn't been written by the legislature, but which has come into common practice as a result of a judge interpreting a written law and setting a precedent. If subsequent judges agree to that ruling, eventually it because sort the way things are, until the Supreme Court weighs in, or the legislature spells it out (in a statute).

Re:Traditional crimes

[wisnoskij]

I hear he can bully someone by whistling into a phone.

Re:Traditional crimes

[geekoid]

No, it isn't.
Freedom of speech does not mean you have no repercussion for lying about people. It never has/

Re:Traditional crimes

[Bardez]

You're on the internet. That sentence should be perfectly readable to you, because reasons.

Re:Traditional crimes

[HornWumpus]

The corruption sounds terrible. You should move. I hear Chicago is nice.

Re:Traditional crimes

[ultranova]

2. Is a true statement. Abortion comes from the word abortio and aborior which both have the meaning of miscarriage. And "abortion" as people refer to in pro-choice arguments, etc is an induced abortion, i.e. an induced miscarriage.

And in modern English as commonly used "abortion" means a purposefully induced miscarriage, just like you yourself state above, while "miscarriage" means an unintended one. Etymology of words is fascinating, but it does not make a statement that is false by their current meaning any less so. And it definitely does not excuse someone who's purposefully trying to deceive.

Right.

[Reason58]

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.

Re:Right.

[maliqua]

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

Re:Right.

[i kan reed]

So... let's say he's a sociopath.

That means the problem is one of mental health. An untreatable personality disorder, no less. How does that affect the correct course of action here?

Re:Right.

[smooth wombat]

Or he's taking personal responsibility and accepting whatever awaits him because he knew what he did was wrong.

Unlike the guy who deliberately put his equipment in someone else's closet, attempted to hide that equipment, then whined when he was caught and tried to claim he was the victim before he killed himself.

Re:Right.

[pla]

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.

Re:Right.

[nblender]

i'm not defending his actions ... But I feel, in some small way, like I can put myself in his shoes. I was physically and emotionally tormented through 6 years of my early years at school. It had a profound effect on who I am today. I remember down to the detail every one of these incidents and I have vivid memories of the perpetrators.. Over the years I have imagined who these people must have grown up to be and delighted in the fact that they probably became menial laborers... I even had one of them in my house more than 20 years later to install my cable modem. I recognized him immediately and I don't think he had any idea who I was... I personally wouldn't wage a campaign of harrassment against these people but I know I would take secret delight if I were to read of their untimely deaths in the papers... Because of this, I can imagine how this guy felt...

As soon as we found out that my son was being bullied, we acted quickly to intervene and change the situation. I don't want my son to grow up having to deal with this sort of baggage.

Re:Right.

[i kan reed]

The DSM designation is "Antisocial personality disorder", and yes it is. It's just one with no known physiological cause.

what a lazy jerk

[Thud457]

pheh! what a piker, you mean to tell me me didn't convert a bulldozer into an improvised tank, rampage across town and knock down city hall?![1]
Hell, he couldn't even bother enough to steal a tank.[2]


[1,2] Both of these things actually happened. And they weren't even in Florida. Look it up.

So?

[Charliemopps]

So what? Crazy people do crazy stuff... Get him some psychological help. I don't see this as something you should be put in prison for. There is very little that you can do online that I'd say is worthy of jail time. Maybe if you hacked a reactor or something...

Online libel can be quite harmful

[sirwired]

Poisoning Google searches for your targets can most certainly ruin lives, in many cases in an irrevocable fashion if the information gets republished far and wide. I don't see why prison time should not be on the table.

Re: What about his "victims'" actions?

[TheCastro1689]

That's what I was thinking. They harassed him and get off without a worry. I figure because his accusations are hearsay and his actions are documented.

Re:What about his "victims'" actions?

[CurryCamel]

Because they always are.

Now, just now, we have caught a bully in the action. Please don't spoil the moment.

What he did - i.e. reversed the role from victim to bully makes him a hero for all who are bullied. But no less a bully.

How he did it was a bit over the top. But that is irrelevant, as bullies always are over the top. At least from the victims' viewpoint.

I sincerely hope both parties learned their lessons. But I also know half of his victims hadn't even realized they had gone too far. Just like he himself didn't notice. I don't envy the judge's task of determining what is "justice" here.

I've been through this

[Tempest_2084]

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?

Re:I've been through this

[Tempest_2084]

How do you prove that someone started creating accounts in your name or signing up your e-mail address to all kinds of nasty groups? Most sites won't disclose the IP address of the person who signed you up without some sort of legal order and I don't think "A guy left our forum in a huff and the next day I started getting signed up for stuff" is sufficient grounds to obtain one.

However in my case the guy also signed me up for magazines and some record clubs (back when those were still a thing) and that's how he finally got caught. He was dumb enough to mail one of the registration cards out without proper postage and it was returned to my address but had a postmark for his hometown (we knew who the guy was and where he lived). Interestingly the people at the magazine companies were much more helpful than the website operators.

None of this went through the legal system or anything like that since a postmark is hardly enough evidence for criminal charges, but several people confronted the guy with the evidence we had accumulated (I wasn't the only guy he was doing this to) and he agreed to stop.

At least he didn't snap and kill them all!

[ErichTheRed]

Especially in the US, a lot of these kinds of incidents end with the person getting a gun, going back to the office and wiping out those that have wronged them.

It is interesting to see how much pent-up anger must have been in this guy's head to spend the amount of time and effort he did "getting his revenge." I don't have access to the case details, but that must have been a LOT of name-calling and jokes. If the guy really didn't leave his apartment for 7 months, that kind of sets a new record for obsessive behavior. I'm envisioning a whole bookshelf full of methodical notes about his tormentors.

It doesn't excuse what he did, but it's kind of sad when stuff that should have been left behind in high school persists in the "adult" world. But it goes to show you that the quiet guy you're making fun of might be taking careful notes and biding his time. His co-workers must not have been too busy if they had all the time to crack jokes at his expense.

Re:True Scotsman found for cyberbullying

[Cabriel]

was it maybe nine-thousand and one miles back?

Re: What about his "victims'" actions?

[ottcanon]

He was not harassed at all. Source: I worked at the same place with him for about six months before he quit. And I seriously doubt that the children he targeted harassed him. And I seriously doubt that there was some sort of conspiracy of 38 people from 3 different countries harassing him. He is simply looking for a way to mitigate his inevitable sentence. He would be happily harassing away if he hadn't been arrested. This guy deserves serious jail time. A convenient jail house realization that what he was doing was bad.

Re:What about his "victims'" actions?

[Tempest_2084]

Is there any evidence that his accusations have merit? I'm not sure I trust the word of a guy who is disturbed enough to do this sort of thing for over ten years. I don't think the article said anything about it.