Cyberstalker ruined people's lives - can they be helped?

Jicheng "Kevin" Liu was a prolific burglar with a mean streak who cyberstalked anyone who crossed him, Cook County prosecutors say.

In retaliation for his arrest in the theft of a stroller, Liu ran online ads claiming his accuser performed acts of prostitution out of her Roscoe Village residence, authorities said. The woman and her husband were awakened in the middle of the night several times earlier this year by men at their front door who thought they had appointments for sex.

Prosecutors said Liu sometimes mistakenly targeted the wrong people, then unleashed a torrent of malicious allegations online against them. In one case, wrongly thinking another victim caused his arrest, he alleged that the woman, a nurse at a children's hospital, routinely mistreated patients, they said. Then, posing as a female homebuyer on the Internet, Liu accused the nurse's Realtor husband of rape, according to prosecutors.

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the accuser identified about a half-dozen others who said they had been defamed by Liu on consumer websites, according to the complaint. Among those were two Chicago police officers who had arrested Liu. A posting on a website accused one of the officers of molesting a half-dozen underage children.

The Tribune spoke with several of Liu's alleged victims, but Renee Molda was the only one who agreed to be identified for this story. The others said they still feared retribution from Liu even though he is in jail awaiting trial and likely to be deported to China after his criminal charges are resolved.

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The harassment soon began, [Molda] said. First came waves of spam in their email account. Then erotic images. And even more maddening were the text messages Liu allegedly sent to them.

"'Have you checked on your son? Is he sleeping?'" Molda recalled one of the messages saying. "He was naming members of my family (and) telling me that as long as he lived, he's going to make my life a living hell."

Liu also put their reputations with eBay in jeopardy, according to Molda. She said Liu went on a consumer website and wrote dozens of phony reviews about the couple's eBay business, claiming they had duped thousands of people by selling fraudulent mortgages as well as marketing stolen and counterfeit merchandise on their eBay operation.

The cyberattacks cost the couple their eBay business, Molda said. Unable to afford their rent, they and their young son were forced to move in with relatives.

"I ended up having anxiety," she said. "It's just a constant worry, especially when you have a child."

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