A Minneapolis man has been indicted on charges of cyberstalking and making threats through Minnesota State University Mankato's incident-reporting system.
Jeffrey C. Purdy, 28, was initially charged on March 2 and is being held in the Sherburne County jail, U.S. Attorney Erica MacDonald said Friday in a news release.
According to the federal indictment, between Aug. 30, 2017, and Feb. 29 of this year, Purdy used various kinds of interstate commerce to threaten to injure and kidnap a former classmate at Minnesota State University, Mankato.
On Sept. 15, 2017, a woman told the Mankato Department of Public Safety that Purdy had been sending her harassing e-mails. She had declined repeated romantic advances from Purdy and blocked him from her cellphone and social media accounts. Purdy then began using the university's Silent Witness Report, an anonymous incident-reporting tool, to make several violent threats against the woman.
Investigators traced the threats to Purdy, and in February, he admitted during an interview with investigators that he had sent all of the threats.
This indictment followed an investigation by the FBI and the Mankato Department of Public Safety, with assistance from the Blue Earth County Attorney's Office, McDonald said.
Purdy is charged with one count of cyberstalking, five counts of interstate transmission of a threat to injure a person, and one count of interstate transmission of a threat to kidnap the person of another.
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