Nassau Man Sentenced For Stalking, Sending Drugs To Ex Girlfriend

A Seaford man who was convicted of stalking an ex-girlfriend and mailing drugs to her in an attempt to get her kicked out of school was sentenced to four years in jail on Wednesday.

Thomas Traficante, 23, was found guilty of cyberstalking and distribution of a controlled substance earlier this year for his attempt to harass and intimidate his ex-girlfriend.

According to prosecutors, after his girlfriend had broken up with him, Traficante began to harass and stalk her from October until mid-December of 2017. He accessed her online accounts and used them without permission and changed her passwords.

On multiple occasions, he sent packages of drugs to her school mailbox, seemingly in the hope of getting her kicked out of school so she would move back home and they could be together. Prosecutors say he sent her cocaine, MDMA and marijuana.

The woman was continually harassed while at school, prosecutors say, and the harassment extended to her friends. The woman was a member of a sorority on campus, and Traficante used online services to send threatening anonymous text messages to many of them, saying, "it's not safe out there tonight," along with many other threatening messages.

Traficante also posted the woman's contact information to prostitution websites, resulting in her getting dozens of unwanted phone calls, emails and text messages.

The harassment extended to the woman's home on Long Island as well, prosecutors say. One morning, the woman's father went outside to find that the window on his car had been shattered with a BB gun. Traficante had allegedly mentioned his BB gun to his ex-girlfriend before. In December, the woman received a package at home with a book titled "I Am Watching You," which is a novel that involves stalking and sending threatening letters. Traficante had hacked into the woman's Amazon account, which she had not used in years, and purchased the book.

Over the course of the investigation, it was revealed that this was not the first woman that Traficante had harassed in such a way. Prosecutors say he committed similar acts of digital harassment and stalking from 2014 to 2015.

In addition, prosecutors say they found a loaded AR-15 in Traficante's house at the time of his arrest.

"I applaud the efforts of the members of the Geneseo University Police, who did a tremendous job is tracking down the source of threatening text messages sent to students,” said U.S. Attorney James Kennedy, Jr., who prosecuted the case in the Western District of New York. “Their efforts very well may have prevented an unspeakable act of violence from occurring resulting in tragedy and heartbreak.”

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