A Coronado-based Navy sailor pleaded guilty this month to cyberstalking a woman, including posting sexually explicit videos of her on a pornography website.
Sergio Reinaldo Williams, 36, also admitted to sending harassing and intimidating messages to the woman and some of her family members, including messages that contained screenshots of the videos he’d uploaded, according to his plea agreement.
Williams was indicted in August on a federal cyberstalking charge following a Naval Criminal Investigative Service investigation. He pleaded guilty Thursday to the charge, which carries a potential penalty of up to five years in prison and a fine up to $250,000.
Prosecutors from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of California will recommend a sentence of one year and one day, according to Williams’ plea agreement.
Defense attorney David Silldorf declined to say in a phone call Thursday night what sentence he’ll argue for, but said his client removed the video from the porn site after about eight hours after he “realized he may have gone a bridge too far.”
According to the plea agreement, Williams threatened and harassed the victim and her family members, including her niece and son, in October 2020 while he was based at Naval Air Station North Island. He admitted to sending a message to the victim that read: “I felt your pain, now you’re going to feel mine … you will remember me no matter what.”
The next day, Williams created an account on a widely used porn site and uploaded two videos of the victim, one of which contained her Instagram user name in the title. He then sent screenshots of the videos to one of the victim’s family members, and later texted the victim: “You did this, like I said I felt your sting, now you’re going to feel mine.”
Silldorf said his client “immediately regretted” his actions, which played out over two days and “was not a long pattern … (and) not as aggravated as some other cyberstalking cases.”
The attorney said Williams, who is scheduled to be sentenced in May, was removed from the Navy as a result of the criminal case.
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