A 31-year-old Sarnia, Ont., man is facing charges in connection with a criminal harassment investigation London police say involves four victims and dates back several years.
The first incident occurred in 2019 in Sarnia, police said, when a woman entered into a relationship with a man whom she had been talking to online.
The man sexually assaulted the woman in the summer of 2019, and for the next three years sent threatening messages over various social media platforms, police said.
“The messages contained threats to share intimate images and videos of the victim if she did not provide him with additional images,” police said in a statement.
Police say a male friend of the woman began receiving harassing texts from the same number in 2020, identified as 548-485-5758.
The next year, a woman unknown to the first victim also began receiving threatening text messages from the same suspect number. After changing her cell number, police say the man continued to send harassing and sexually explicit messages. Now, however, the messages were being received by a teenage boy who had been reassigned her number in 2022.
“The aforementioned incidents were reported to the Sarnia police, however a suspect was not identified,” police said.
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This past February, police say a London woman began to receive harassing, threatening and explicit text messages from the same suspect phone number, including requests for sexual services in exchange for money.
The woman reported the incidents to police in late June, and an investigation revealed the suspect number in the incidents belonged to a Sarnia man and had been registered through a text messaging application.
A home on Emma Street in Sarnia was raided on July 21 by members of the London police human trafficking unit, and police say one suspect was taken into custody.
James Trevor Munroe, 31, of Sarnia, faces four counts of criminal harassment by repeated communication, three of uttering threats of death or bodily harm, two of extortion and two of obtaining sexual services for consideration.
He also faces one count each of sexual assault, printing/publishing/possessing to publish child pornography, and procuring.
Police say they are continuing to investigate, and ask members of the public to come forward if they have had similar dealings with the accused and/or the suspect phone number 548-485-5758.
Munroe remains in custody and appeared in court on Friday.
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