An Eastern Ohio man was sentenced in U.S. District Court Friday to 14 years in prison for discharging a firearm during a drug-trafficking robbery and for cyberstalking a victim for a year, according to a press release by the Southern District of Ohio U.S. Attorney’s Office.
Michael Bertolino, Jr., 35, of Adena, Ohio, was sentenced for committing three federal crimes.
According to court documents cited in the press release, in December 2020, Bertolino conspired with others to plan and execute the armed robbery of a drug dealer in Cadiz, Ohio. At a meet-up arranged through the social media platform Snapchat, Bertolino and others robbed the individual of a half-pound of marijuana and 50 THC cartridges. During the robbery, as the victim was on the ground, Bertolino discharged a gun into the ground near the victim’s head.
In a separate criminal scheme, throughout all of 2020, Bertolino used social media platforms, text messages, and a GPS system to cyberstalk a second victim. The defendant created social media accounts to post derogatory statements or comments on the accounts of the victim and the victim’s friends and family members, according to the press release.
For example, Bertolino created a Facebook account and used explicit photos of the victim for the account profile. Bertolino also placed a GPS tracker on the victim’s vehicle and monitored the victim’s movement on his computer. He sent the victim Google Earth screenshots showing that he was tracking the victim at all times. As part of his cyberstalking, as the press release notes, Bertolino used a text messaging application to send the victim thousands of messages from what appeared to be 19 different phone numbers. In the messages, he threatened to kill the victim and those involved with the victim and promised to post compromising pictures of the victim online.
Bertolino pleaded guilty in July 2021 to conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute marijuana, discharging a firearm during a drug trafficking crime, and cyberstalking, according to the press release.
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Kaitlin Housler is a reporter at The Tennessee Star and The Star News Network.
