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Woman accused of cyberstalking testifies at trial
GREENSBORO, Feb 23, 2013 (News & Record - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) --
An Apex woman on trial for cyberstalking denied sending her ex-boyfriend and his family harassing email, making harassing calls or using online services to cloak her phone number and email address.
Meghan McCarthy, 25, testified Friday afternoon in Guilford County Superior Court. The former High Point University student is charged with two counts of cyberstalking, four counts of making harassing phone calls and one count of computer trespass.
Judge Richard W. Stone on Friday dismissed a charge of identity theft and one charge of computer trespass because of insufficient evidence.
McCarthy is accused of annoying, embarrassing and "terrifying" ex-boyfriend Jason Pfister of Greensboro and his family.
Among other things, she is accused of calling and emailing them repeatedly, and masking her phone number and email address with those of Pfister's friends and family.
Pfister, who testified on the first day of the trial Tuesday, said he received up to 50 harassing calls a day after he broke up with McCarthy in August 2010, along with a phone-book sized binder's worth of harassing email.
He also said McCarthy had broken into his Facebook account, began posting as him on his wall and suggested that she was pregnant with his child.
A UNCG detective testified Thursday and Friday that he had traced the calls and messages to numbers and IP addresses associated with McCarthy's home, work and model of Blackberry.
On Friday, McCarthy's mother, Maureen McCarthy testified that she too received a number of harassing calls and email. Some of those, she said, came when her daughter was in her presence without a cellphone or computer around.
Some of the email, Maureen McCarthy testified, described "aspects of our lives that I could not imagine how they found out." She even had her home scanned for listening devices, she said.
Meghan McCarthy testified after her mother. She countered Pfister's allegations that she was controlling and said Pfister would "blow up" at her and "a lot of times when alcohol was involved, we would get into arguments."
"When it was good, it was good," she testified. "But when it was bad, it was very, very scary."
She described the harassing email she said she received, containing messages like "ha, ha, you broke up," and "no way you're getting back together, if I have anything to do with it."
Meghan McCarthy testified she took a photo in which she appeared pregnant as a joke but did not send it to Pfister or his family. Closing arguments will take place Monday.
Contact Robert C. Lopez at 691-5091, and follow @rclopez79 on Twitter.
___ (c)2013 the News & Record (Greensboro, N.C.) Visit the News & Record
(Greensboro, N.C.) at www.news-record.com Distributed by MCT Information
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