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Kendra Gail Licari, a Michigan woman, was charged with multiple felony counts after authorities uncovered her role in a catfishing scheme that targeted her daughter.
On Monday, December 12, Kendra Gail Licari, 42, was arrested and charged after a year-long investigation. The investigation began in December 2021 with a complaint of cyberbullying, targeting a teen and her boyfriend, and culminated this year with the discovery that the teen's mother orchestrated it.
Isabella County Prosecutor David Barberi told the New York Post that Licari harassed the two teens who reportedly went to Beal City Schools starting in early 2021 and tried to frame other teens by creating multiple VPNs to mislead authorities.
Kendra Gail Licari sent harassing text messages to her daughter and her boyfriend for over a year
Kendra Gail Licari, who was employed by Beal City Schools as a girls’ basketball coach at the time, used virtual private networks to send harassing messages to her daughter and her boyfriend for nearly a year, starting in early 2021. Licari reportedly worked with the other teen's mother to uncover the suspect responsible for the disparaging texts.
Law enforcement reportedly got involved after Beal City Schools lodged an official complaint in December 2021. Authorities reportedly tried to track down the IP address from where the messages were being sent but discovered the suspect used multiple virtual private networks to mask their location.
Licari was reportedly caught after local law enforcement enlisted the help of the FBI after they exhausted all their resources in the investigation in April this year. The FBI was finally able to track down the IP address used to send the harassing text messages and discovered that it belonged to the teen's mother.
Licari, released on a $5,000 bond following her arraignment on Monday, reportedly confessed to the crime but did not reveal the motive behind her actions.
Authorities said that law enforcement had uncovered at least 349 pages of harassing texts and social media messages sent by Kendra Gail Licari during the investigation.
Kendra Gail Licari was charged with two counts of stalking a minor, two counts of using a computer to commit a crime, and one count of obstruction of justice. The suspect is due back in court later this month, where the judge will determine if the case will go to trial. As per the New York Post, using a computer to commit a crime carries a 10-year sentence. Stalking minors and obstruction of justice can carry up to five years in prison.
