Bug-a-Boo: Man Faces 5-Year Prison Sentence After Calling Ex 800 Times In Two Days

Before you decide to blow up the phone of your ex or current partner, you may want to think twice.

A Hagerstown, Maryland, man learned that less is best when it’s time to move on. Forty-four-year-old Derik Wayne Bowyers has been charged with one count of stalking by a Martinsburg federal grand jury. The charges come after Bowyers harassed his ex-girlfriend through online messages, texts, and phone calls in December 2022. At one point, he tried to call her 815 times in just 48 hours. He also used public bullying in the form of social media posts to harass her.

“Cyberstalking is a pervasive problem that we treat very seriously in West Virginia,” said United States Attorney William Ihlenfeld. “I encourage those who are being intimidated online and who suffer substantial emotional distress as a result to file a police report so that wrongdoers may be investigated and held to account.” If convicted, he could face up to five years in prison.

The rules on what constitutes harassment have been looked at closely, with cyberstalking becoming increasingly prevalent along with “revenge porn, which is now considered a first-degree misdemeanor carrying a $1,000 fine and a 6-month jail sentence. Many people have started to hit back at their online stalkers by getting the law involved. Recently, BBC presenter Alexis Green pressed charges against 55-year-old Timothy O’Brien, who sent her over 100 messages on Facebook between December and January. She said that he sent her explicit images and videos, along with propositions for sex, relentlessly. Celebrities like Rihanna and the daughter of late basketball great Kobe Bryant, Natalia Bryant, have come face to face with their stalkers in recent months, proving that all threats should be taken seriously, even those that take place, primarily behind phone screens.

Y’all better leave people alone!