Manitoba shut-in impersonated NBA player, other celebrities from a bedroom computer

A shut-in with a Grade 6 education from northern Manitoba masterminded an extortion that nearly ruined the career of an NBA basketball star, as well as the lives of other victims.

Investigators untangled the complex case of cybercrime that led to a rundown, moldy home in a remote Manitoba community of Easterville and Shelly Chartier, 30, a recluse who spent her waking hours in a bedroom on the computer.

From February 2011 to August 2013, Chartier posed online as various individuals, including some media and sport celebrities. By impersonating her victims, she manipulated a 17-year-old California girl to have an affair with the pro athlete. The victims’ names are protected by a publication ban imposed last week.

“Her efforts were lengthy and involved, lasting many months, and entailed thousands of texts, emails, Facebook posts and tweets. These communications were deceitful, mischievous and manipulative. The accused misrepresented material facts to deceive her victims and lied to them to gain either tangible goods or attention,” reads a statement of facts document supplied to Yahoo Canada News by Chartier’s defence lawyer John Skinner.

“Chartier was discovered after cybercrime specialists traced back the communications and found links to an Internet account in Manitoba.

“This investigation began because the accused’s online activities caused others to become suspects in serious crimes,” the court was told.

Chartier set up fake accounts pretending to be the NBA player and a popular professional online gamer who knew him.

“It’s simply an ongoing nightmare…I still don’t fully understand what happened here, how someone could steal my identity and nearly take my life because of who I am,” the pro athlete said in a victim impact statement for the court, the Winnipeg Free Press reported.

“This false news spread worldwide in minutes. It’s impossible for me to describe everything, but in front of millions of people on a public stage, I wore this label.”

Through a fake Facebook account, Chartier ended up communicating with the 17-year-old, who as a fan had initially written to the NBA player. By deceiving them both, Chartier obtained photos and videos of the girl and while pretending to be the girl, she was able to orchestrate a weekend get together at his home.

The girl flew to Colorado on Dec 7, 2011, and spent a three-day weekend with the NBA star. The two had consensual sex. Neither Chartier nor the athlete knew the girl was under 18, the court heard.

Sometime after that weekend Chartier posted nude images online that the girl had sent. When the girl saw the posted pictures, she became angry and following an exchange was threatened by Chartier, posing as the video gamer, whose name is also protected by the publication ban.

The case began to unravel after Chartier, impersonating the gamer, sent a threatening note to the girl, who confessed to her mother.

The mother contacted police in California, who began to investigate since the girl was under 18. They began a child exploitation investigation of the real NBA athlete and the real video gamer.

Chartier then went back to the real athlete and on Feb. 19, 2012, began to extort money from him by pretending to be the girl’s mother.

“In her emails (Chartier) outlined that she’d publicly embarrass (him) unless he provided everything on her daughter’s Victoria Secret wish list and her Amazon.com wish list as well as providing her with an additional $5,000 in bedding,” the court statement said. “This request seemed bizarre until the RCMP learned the accused was a ‘shut-in’ who spent all of her waking hours in her bedroom.”

The athlete, who was told by the girl that she was 21, was extremely upset and had his lawyer respond to the extortion attempt with a payment of $3,000 via PayPal to protect his privacy.

Police in the athlete’s home state became aware of the case and eventually raided his home, although he would later be cleared. However the publicity from the case affected him significantly, resulting in him being dropped by his team and also from his children’s charities.

“After a detailed and time consuming review of the 40+ electronic devices seized from the residence, questions began to arise about (the athlete’s) true involvement,” according to the statement of agreed facts. “It began to appear to law enforcement that the real (athlete) wasn’t communicating with the real (California girl).”

Police then turned their attention to tracking down the actual person responsible for the online threats. Dozens of officers from the U.S. and Canada spent three years investigating the case and executed 39 search warrants.

RCMP image analysts and other officers concluded the images that were shared could not be categorized as child pornography. However, the authorities eventually tracked down Chartier because of the $3,000 extortion payment made through the PayPal account traced back to her in Easterville.

They were also able to trace the IP addresses of the text messages, emails and web postings that Chartier had made under various identities.

Other victims

The men and the teenager were not Chartier’s only victims.

Chartier, by pretending to be the pro athlete, was also able to convince an actress about a phony story of a house fire in northern Manitoba where a young woman lost everything, including her clothing.

The actress was asked to help on the fake basketball player’s Facebook account and she ended up sending up to $3,000 worth of her own clothing to Chartier’s home in Easterville. Chartier also convinced her to send a bottle of wine to another address in Texas.

Chartier, impersonating the video gamer, was also able through “abusive and controlling” texts to obtain goods and money from a woman who “told RCMP that she wouldn’t eat in order to save money to send to the accused.”

Police eventually searched the woman’s home because she was unwittingly used by Chartier as an accomplice in her other extortion attempts. She was not charged because police concluded she was also a Chartier victim.

During the search they found a number of electronic devices with communications that led them back to Chartier, who was arrested on Jan 15, 2013, and released on a promise to appear. She was arrested again on Dec. 16, 2013, after she violated a court order to stay off the Internet.

This excerpt from the court statement may explain her motivation:

“According to one witness, she rarely if ever, was seen outside of her house. From the forensic evidence, it was determined that her presence online was compulsive and constant. She had numerous personalities she had been assuming on the net, which she used to interact with many people. These personas appear to have been a key social outlet for her and a means of exerting some influence over others. It was an avenue into a world of talented and beautiful celebrities she could only dream about; it appears that she would engage in fantasy whereby she participated in the lives of others more interesting than her own. It was a means of acquiring some property and money, which she couldn’t otherwise attain.”

Chartier appeared in court in Manitoba last Wednesday and has admitted her guilt in the case, which includes charges of extortion, impersonation and uttering threats.

The Crown has asked for an 18-month sentence for Chartier, who has no prior criminal record.

Judge Ryan Rolston has reserved his decision until later this year.