Digital Forensics Dispatch

Woman Accused of Faking Threatening Messages from Online Dating Match

October 12, 2021

According to Kevin Deutsch’s recent article on coralspringstalk.com, Coral Springs Florida resident Vanessa Restrepo has been criminally charged with sending racist and violent text messages. The twist in this case is that the threats, which include racist rants about a county Judge, death threats and even a bomb threat against the Broward County Courthouse, were sent mostly to herself.

Apparently she was sending these messages to herself and her roommate impersonating a man she had met on a dating website. The two then took the messages to local authorities who issued multiple restraining orders for stalking and eventually criminal charges against the man for the threats.

However, Restrepo’s story began to unravel when digital forensic examinations of her call records and IP addresses associated with the messages were reviewed. Broward County investigators were able to determine that all threats the charges against the unfortunate man were based on were messages that Restrepo had sent.

As the investigation continued, it became apparent that she had even done this before targeting others with false threats she sent to herself.  When confronted with the evidence, the arrest record from the Broward County Sheriff’s office said she admitted to faking the messages and “that her intent was to get [the man] kicked out of school because she wanted him to have a criminal record.”

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