Bay Area mom who cyberbullied daughter's dates gets 3 years in federal prison
BRENTWOOD – A Brentwood woman who cyberstalked, bullied and harassed people who had falling outs with her daughter has been sentenced to over three years in federal prison, the Department of Justice announced on Tuesday.
Ramajana Hidic Demirovic, 47, formerly of San Francisco, pleaded guilty in August of 2022 to sending "hundreds" of malicious, deceptive, and abusive communications intended to sabotage the personal relationship, social reputation, academic life and work prospects of her intended victims that caused "staggering" distress, the DOJ said.
Demirovic admitted that between 2016 and 2019 she and her daughter attempted to cause—and did cause—"substantial" emotional distress to their victims.
The principal targets of their attacks were people with whom the daughter had had a friendship or relationship with and then had a falling out, the DOJ said.
"In each case, after the relationship ended, Demirovic engaged in a campaign to punish the victims," said the DOJ.
Demirovic's first victim was a 14-year-old boy who dated her daughter for only a few days in February of 2016. According to the DOJ and her own plea agreement, Demirovic went to the victim's school, located him, accosted him, and then in front of other students, threatened him. She also contacted the boy's mother and made false statements via text about the boy being violent to her daughter.
The second victim was a female friend of Demirovic's daughter until the two of them had a falling out. Demirovic began sending harassing text messages to the girl and leaving her threatening voicemails. She also threatened to send fabricated, incriminating evidence to the police and to have the girl disciplined by her school.
A third victim also briefly dated Demirovic's daughter in 2016 and was met with vicious text messages, according to the DOJ, and threats to take out a restraining order against him that would prejudice his college applications. She also made false reports to his employer accusing him of being physically abusive, using drugs and having a problem with alcohol; he subsequently had to quit his job. Demirovic also contacted the young man's school with the same accusations and created spoof social media accounts using his name and image.
By May of 2017, Demirovic admitted to escalating her tactics to completely destroy and humiliate a fourth victim by going after his social relationships over a 17-month period, the DOJ said.
This time, Demirovic used Instagram and Gmail accounts that impersonated the victim, referred to as "TV", as well as other accounts with pseudonyms to send hundreds of communications and postings suggesting, among other things, that the victim was high on drugs, that he was emotionally and psychologically abusive, and that he was engaged in online bullying and anonymous messaging. Demirovic also reported the young man to Title IX officers at his university, falsely alleging that he had "harassed and stalked" girls.
A restraining order was placed against Demirovic in that case but she continued to harass the victim and his family anyway, the DOJ said.
According to the sentencing memorandum filed in the case, Demirovic's daughter Arya, who took part in many of the attacks, falsely accused TV of violently raping her.
"This allegation was perhaps the single most extreme and outrageous attempt to portray TV as a sexual predator," reads the memo.
Demirovic repeatedly defended her actions as "protecting her daughter."
"Demirovic's conduct here was not merely irritating, annoying, or offensive," read the sentencing memo filed by the government. "It was obsessive, outrageous, devastating, and criminal."
In all, Demirovic pleaded guilty to seven counts of cyberstalking and one count of conspiracy to commit cyberstalking. She was given a total of 37 months in prison and must begin serving her sentence on March 10.
