SANTA ANA, Calif.—An Orange County man appeared in federal court May 24 after a federal criminal complaint accused him of stalking a professional online gamer during a multi-year harassment campaign.
Evan Baltierra, 29, of Trabuco Canyon, was arrested by FBI agents on Monday afternoon, making his initial appearance the following day in a U.S. District Court in Santa Ana.
He was released on $15,000 bond and is scheduled to be arraigned June 27.
According to an affidavit filed with the complaint, Baltierra “orchestrated a campaign of harassment” targeting the victim, her boyfriend, her friends, and her boyfriend’s family since July 2020.
The victim, a Canadian resident, is a known professional gamer in the community of “World of Warcraft,” a popular multiplayer online role-playing game.
According to a Department of Justice statement, the victim traveled to Anaheim in November 2019 to attend “Blizzcon,” an annual gaming convention that focuses on several video game franchises, including “World of Warcraft.” The victim met Baltierra in person at a meet-and-greet with her fans at the Anaheim Convention Center.
Following the convention, Baltierra allegedly asked the victim to be his “valentine.” In response, she “politely” told him she had a boyfriend. Baltierra then allegedly expressed a desire to visit the victim in Canada, an offer she declined.
After learning from an online friend in June 2020 that Baltierra was trying to find out where she lived because he wanted to visit her, the victim decided to remove Baltierra as moderator of her stream channel and block him from her social media, the statement says.
Baltierra allegedly continued to contact the victim via direct message on various platforms, including Twitter, Instagram, Reddit, and email.
He allegedly contacted the victim’s boyfriend and her colleague via the same online platforms. Many of these messages contained threats of violence toward the victim.
Baltierra also allegedly created fictitious online profiles that displayed photographs of the victim, including pornographic photographs where it appears that Baltierra photoshopped the victim’s face onto the photograph.
He then sent the photoshopped pictures to the victim’s friends and family, and regularly posted the photographed pictures on various internet chat rooms, the affidavit alleges.
Despite obtaining a temporary restraining order against Baltierra in Orange County Superior Court in February 2021 and Baltierra signing an agreement in which he promised to end the harassment campaign, Baltierra allegedly continued to stalk the victim.
In March 2022, law enforcement executed a search warrant at Baltierra’s residence and seized several items, including a thumb drive that contained many photoshopped nude images with the victim’s face on them, and evidence on Baltierra’s iPhone of email accounts with which he used to send the victim harassing messages, the affidavit states.
Baltierra is charged with one count of stalking. If convicted, Baltierra would face a statutory maximum sentence of five years in federal prison.
The FBI investigation remains ongoing.
