Bedford Co. woman blogs about police, then gets arrested
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Bedford Co. woman blogs about police, then gets...
A Bedford County woman started a blog keeping tabs on a Charlottesville area undercover drug task force.A Bedford County woman who started a blog about an undercover police force is now behind bars.
Elisha Strom, 34, of Thaxton, is charged with one count of harassment of a police officer.
She’s currently in the Albermarle-Charlottesville Regional Jail.
A search warrant on file in Bedford County circuit court claims on July 3rd, Strom posted the home address of a Charlottesville police sergeant.
It also shows she posted a picture of the officer getting into his unmarked patrol car in front of his home.
The officer works for the Jefferson Area Drug Enforcement Task Force, or JADE.
A check of Strom’s blog reveals she has posted head shots of many, if not all, of the task force members.
There is also detailed accounts of the task force’s comings and goings.
Strom also posted pictures of several vehicles that could belong to JADE officers.
Other pictures include a state police investigator pumping gas and riding a motorcycle.
Police say, since most JADE officers do undercover work, posting their names, pictures, and possibly home addresses could put the officers in danger.
A state police investigator executed the search warrant at Strom’s Thaxton residence on July 16th, the same day as her arrest.
Court records indicate the officer confiscated her computers, notebooks, and cameras.
In fact, Strom’s last blog entry, dated July 16, simply reads “they’re here.“
On July 10th, Strom posted the following remarks about the state police investigation: “I’m not trying to harass any of the officers. [My blog] is, and has been, a means to exhibit some of the things I’ve experienced because of my curiosity about, and interest in, the JADE task force.“
Strom wrote on her blog all the information she compiled was readily available through public records searches and other means on the Internet.
Strom’s next court appearance is scheduled for September 17th.
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Reader Reactions
Elisha Strom’s blog is really quite interesting.
The whole site with every article can be seen as one big page if you go to
http://iheartejade.blogspot.com/search?updated-max=2009-07-17T19:12:00-04:00&max;-results=1000
Leaving aside the legal issues, it’s a testament to a totally obsessed woman. Celebrity stalkers and John Hinckley’s “thing” for Jodie Foster are nothing compared with Elisha Strom’s obsession with Brian O’Donnell and the JADE Task Force. Apparently Elisha once had a close relationship with O’Donnell that went bad: See her post
http://www.iheartejade.blogspot.com/2008/12/ghost-from-christmas-past.html
That relationship, whatever it was, started when Elisha Strom was a star witness in the politically-tinged trial of her husband, in which O’Donnell was the lead FBI - Joint Terrorism Task Force agent:
http://www.kevinalfredstrom.com/2009/01/kevin-alfred-strom-address-to-the-court/
It’s not clear how the relationship went bad, but Elisha says O’Donnell’s actions inspired her anti-JADE blogging and stalking, as she makes clear on her very first post at ../coming-soon_25.html
She also had what appears to be a sexual relationship with another unnamed officer linked to the JADE Task Force (who she nicknamed “Boomslang”), and was using him to get confidential information about other officers and about JADE operations. See her post
http://www.iheartejade.blogspot.com/2009/04/put-camo-green-up-somewhere-anywhere_30.html
She also says O’Donnell (who she nicknames “Longhead” or “LH”) “bullied” her: See .../2008/11/longer-version-with-oodles-of_13.html
Right at the end of the above post, she implies that she’ll retaliate somehow if the FBI (probably meaning O’Donnell, who works with the FBI as well as the JADE and JTTF task forces) comes down on her.
It’s not clear what she means by retaliation, but revelations of inside information on agents - possibly including marital infidelity and law violations - seem the most likely: In other posts, she claims to have discovered a married agent’s mistress/girlfriend. She asserts she had close relationships herself with the possibly-married O’Donnell and “Boomslang.“ Maybe it’s a kind of blackmail, though money doesn’t seem to be a motive: “Leave me alone or I’ll tell all I know.“ Were there other demands we don’t know about?
It’s cosmically bizarre the lengths to which this woman went to stalk her prey: following agents into stores and gyms, finding out their pants sizes, tailing them within inches of their bumpers for miles into the country, going to the property rolls and then letting everyone know where their families live, where they do target shooting, what kind of cars they drive (even down to updates when something is added to or repaired on the vehicle), lying in wait for them at home, at work, at stakeouts, at court. When did she have time to work - or to raise the 12-year-old daughter she claims to have? Just the writing alone must have taken many many hours, to say nothing of the stalking.
Magnum:
You said, “No matter what the content of her blog, she fully has the right, to write whatever she wants…“
That’s not true. She certainly can’t say, “Someone needs to take these guys out…“ that would be not only abhorrent and nasty, but of course illegal (and IMO rightfully so.)
That being said, I do agree completely with the rest of your comment. From what I’ve read, it is clear that her blog 1) takes from publicly available sources and 2) gives her opinion about JADE, which is clearly protected speech.
This is a violation of this womans constitutional right to free speech. Those officers are paid by taxpayer money, and they are fully aware of the risk they take when they apply for undercover police work. No matter what the content of her blog, she fully has the right, to write whatever she wants, w/o police interference. It’s not a crime to identify a tax payer funded person.
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