Man arrested in unique North Salt Lake ‘stalking on steroids’ case

A warning sign and a police officer’s vehicle are stationed at Walt Gilmore’s home on Thursday, March 21, 2019. | Laura Seitz, Deseret News

NORTH SALT LAKE — After more than a year of investigation, an arrest has been made and federal charges filed in what has been described as a North Salt Lake case of “stalking on steroids.”

Loren M. Okamura, 44, of Honolulu, was indicted by a federal grand jury on charges of cyberstalking, making interstate threats and transporting a person over state lines for the purpose of prostitution, U.S. Attorney for Utah John Huber announced Tuesday.

Huber said federal cyberstalking is a rare charge in Utah.

“We have not charged this in Utah in our memory,” he said.

Okamura was actually indicted on Oct. 2. But his charges were kept under seal until federal authorities could locate him.

“Law enforcement struggled to find Okamura after his indictment, in part because he does not have a known permanent address nor known employment in Hawaii. Okamura is also very savy with technology, and uses applications on his phone such as Coverme to spoof location data,” according to federal court documents.

On Friday, a team from the FBI’s Cyber Crimes unit based in Utah found Okamura in Hawaii and arrested him.

Since August of 2018, investigators say Okamura has been relentlessly stalking Walt Gilmore and his adult daughter. Investigators say Okamura was “spoofing” phone numbers from remote locations and had sent hundreds of service providers, such as plumbers, electricians and even pizza delivery people to Gilmore’s North Salt Lake home and his business in Salt Lake City.

“Between November 2018 and February 2019, law enforcement in Utah responded to unwanted service calls at this residence more than 80 times. In January 2019, Okamura left egregious amounts of unwanted voicemails on the adult woman’s voicemail, including multiple messages per day. The adult female and her family have obtained cease and desist orders, as well as a civil stalking injunction in Utah, which Okamura continues to break,” the court documents say.

Companies reported losing thousands of dollars in man hours, resources and lost business over the time it took to respond to the false calls for service.

“Okamura’s egregious and relentless conduct did not stop there. He started sending unwanted visitors to the residence, and the father estimates that over 500 unwanted people have been to his house between August and March 2019. At least some of these resulted from Okamura posting the family’s address on Craigslist stating that the homeowner wants drugs and prostitutes to come to the house.”

“This is stalking on steroids. It’s pretty vicious.” North Salt Lake police told the Deseret News in March when it first reported the story.

Gilmore was forced to put signs up in his yard telling delivery people they were being hoaxed. North Salt Lake police even parked a patrol car in his driveway to try and deter people from coming to the house.

After news of the stalking was reported in the media, the daughter received an email stating that she should “sleep with one eye open and keep looking over her shoulder,” according to court documents.

“It’s really extreme stalking that deserves to come to court and receive the justice that is awaiting,” Huber said Tuesday. “I’ll tell you what made this an important case for Utah was that a family, a Utah family, was tormented with hundreds of incidents and a course of conduct that really changed their lives — and even their own neighborhood. So the victimization expanded beyond a victim or home to an entire neighborhood. We’re not going to let that stand.”

Gilmore and his daughter believed they knew all along who was responsible, and even filed a civil stalking injunction against Okamura months ago. But the stalking continued.

Okamura is someone that the daughter knows but no longer has contact with, her father said in March.

When asked if there was any particular piece of evidence that finally allowed prosecutors to file criminal charges, Huber said it was a matter of building a case against Okamura.

“When you talk about cyber-stalking and technology and the use of anonymizing apps, and encryption and things like that, that makes it difficult to gather evidence. And for all the good that technology offers us and our modern lifestyles, there’s also a dark, seedier side to it. And that’s what you have here,” Huber said.

Without going into specific details, he said there will likely be many different types of evidence presented in court.

A detention hearing for Okamura is scheduled for Wednesday in Hawaii.

Although it is believed to be Utah’s first federal cyberstalking case, Huber said it likely won’t be the last.

“I fully expect that people with the worst of intentions will use whatever they can to fully intimidate and cause fear in another person,” he said.

If convicted, Okamura could receive 10 years in federal prison for transportation of a person to engage in prostitution, and five years for each of the cyberstalking charges and making an interstate threat.

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