Proving Who Sent Anonymous Emails in a Massachusetts Stalking Case: Commonwealth v. Hayes

By Attorney Joe Serpa | Georgetown University Law Center

October 16, 2026

On September 24, 2026, the Massachusetts Appeals Court upheld the convictions of a man who pursued a woman he met in high school for about fifteen years, violated the harassment prevention order she obtained against him, and threatened her family in emails sent from other women’s accounts. A Middlesex Superior Court jury convicted Michael Hayes, who represented himself at trial, of stalking, criminal harassment, violating a harassment prevention order, witness intimidation, identity fraud, attempted identity fraud, and unauthorized access to a computer system. The decision is Commonwealth v. Hayes, Nos. 25-P-347 and 25-P-607 (Mass. App. Ct. Sept. 24, 2026).

On appeal, the defendant argued that the police exceeded the search warrant for his phone, that the judge’s instructions about anonymous emails lowered the Commonwealth’s burden of proof, and that a mailing he sent from jail to a witness was protected speech. The Appeals Court rejected each of those arguments. The Commonwealth separately appealed the judge’s decision, almost two years after the original sentencing, to reduce the defendant’s sentence. The Appeals Court upheld the reduction.

The Contact, the Harassment Prevention Orders, and the Threats

The defendant met the woman in 2005, when they were high school juniors. She declined his request for a date and offered to be friends. He called her repeatedly, told her he loved her, waited outside her classes, and followed her around school. When she asked him to leave her alone, he yelled and swore at her until other people intervened. At a meeting with school officials and his parents, the defendant was told to leave her alone. He kept contacting her with notes and emails. After she went to college, his emails used profanity and became angry and threatening.

In 2009, the woman found her car keyed from top to bottom. She reported the damage to the police and obtained an order requiring the defendant to stay away from her. A few years later he twice approached her at a gym. She gave up her membership. In December 2015, while he was hospitalized after a stroke, the defendant emailed her at work to say that he would not stalk her but would always love her. She then obtained a one-year harassment prevention order that barred all direct and indirect contact.

During that year the woman received emails that apparently came from the defendant through anonymous addresses. The emails threatened suicide, blamed her family, and asked her to have the order lifted. The defendant also told her mother on Facebook that the order was ruining his hopes of a career in law enforcement, and that he would make the family come back to court every year to renew the order. In December 2016, the woman obtained a permanent harassment prevention order.

After she obtained the permanent order, the woman began receiving alerts about attempts to log in to her social media accounts. In March 2019, a stranger who described himself as a hacker texted her that someone had tried to hire him to break into her Facebook and Google accounts. She reported the text to the police. In November 2019, she received five unanswered calls in quick succession, the last from a number she connected to the defendant. The police then obtained a warrant for his arrest and a search warrant for his electronic devices.

After the police searched his devices, the defendant was charged with violating the harassment prevention order. The threats continued while that charge was pending. One email told the woman that the sender had succeeded in what he was attempting to do and would embarrass her if she did not stop going forward with the trial. Another email, sent to her mother, threatened to have the woman arrested for possession of child pornography and to ruin her teaching career. In August 2020, the mother received emails threatening to kill her and her husband.

The August 2020 emails came from the accounts of four women. Each woman testified that she did not know the defendant and did not send the emails. Each woman also had private Snapchat photographs that had been compromised. The police obtained a second arrest warrant and a second search warrant. The defendant remained in custody after that arrest. The threats to the family then stopped.

The Search of the Defendant’s Phone

The 2019 search warrant for the defendant’s electronic devices authorized the police to search for internet search history and communication history relating to the woman or her mother, login history for email and social media applications, and data related to software that could be used to break into the woman’s accounts. The police found screenshots of login pages for other people’s accounts, including the woman’s, and screenshots of his conversations with the hacker. The Notes application held entries titled “Hacking Facebook profiles” and “Hacking Snapchats.” A pictures folder held a folder with the woman’s name and a photograph altered to make her appear partially nude.

The defendant argued that the warrant did not authorize the police to search photographs, screenshots, or notes. The Appeals Court held that a search of electronic devices “may be as extensive as reasonably required to locate the items described in the warrant.” Commonwealth v. Dorelas, 473 Mass. 496, 502 (2016). When a warrant does not name particular files or applications, the police may search any file or application that could reasonably contain the evidence the warrant describes. Commonwealth v. Henley, 488 Mass. 95, 119-120 (2021).

A defendant who claims that the police exceeded a warrant bears the burden of showing that the search went beyond its terms. Commonwealth v. Carleton, 497 Mass. 11, 29 (2026). The Appeals Court held that the warrant’s authorization to seize login history included the screenshots of login pages. The authorization to seize communication history and data about software for breaking into accounts included the screenshots of the conversations with the hacker. The police could reasonably open a folder bearing the woman’s name, because communications can be stored in photographic form. The Notes entries about hacking fit the warrant’s description of data about breaking into her accounts.

Authentication of an Anonymous Email

Much of the Commonwealth’s evidence consisted of emails, texts, and calls from anonymous addresses or other people’s accounts. The Commonwealth must authenticate an email or a text, with evidence that the defendant wrote it, before a jury may consider it as the defendant’s message. The judge first decides “whether there is evidence sufficient, if believed, to convince the jury by a preponderance of the evidence that the item in question is what the proponent claims it to be.” Commonwealth v. Purdy, 459 Mass. 442, 447 (2011). The jury then decides for itself, by a preponderance of the evidence, whether the defendant wrote the message.

The defendant argued that the jury had to decide beyond a reasonable doubt who wrote the emails, because authorship was an element of nearly every charge. Authentication, however, is a preliminary question of fact. A preliminary question of fact requires only a preponderance of the evidence, even when the question is closely tied to an element of the crime. Commonwealth v. Oppenheim, 86 Mass. App. Ct. 359, 366-367 (2014). The jury must still decide whether the Commonwealth proved each element of each charge beyond a reasonable doubt.

The jurors asked the judge twice which standard applied to authorship of the emails. The judge told the jurors to decide whether it was more likely true than not true that the defendant wrote an email before considering its content. He told them to disregard any email they could not attribute to the defendant by that standard and to decide the charges on the remaining evidence. He also told them that the Commonwealth always had the burden of proving each charge beyond a reasonable doubt. The Appeals Court held that those instructions were correct and presumed that the jury followed them.

In Commonwealth v. Alden, 93 Mass. App. Ct. 438, 444 (2018), the Appeals Court explained that “authenticity and identity are different legal concepts.” A defendant can still challenge an email after the judge admits it. The defendant can attack the reliability of the email and argue to the jury that someone else wrote it. The jury weighs those arguments with the rest of the evidence. Commonwealth v. Meola, 95 Mass. App. Ct. 303, 313 (2019).

A Mailing From Jail as Witness Intimidation

In March 2021, while he was in custody awaiting trial, the defendant mailed the hacker a printout of the hacker’s driver’s license information, including his date of birth and home address. The printout had a photograph of the hacker’s face with a swastika drawn on the forehead, along with handwritten insults and slurs that named people involved in the prosecution. The return address identified the defendant as an inmate at the jail. The jury convicted the defendant of witness intimidation under G.L. c. 268, § 13B for that mailing.

The defendant argued that the witness intimidation statute punishes only speech that the First Amendment does not protect, and that the mailing was not a true threat. The Appeals Court agreed that the statute may not punish protected speech. The court held, however, that the jury could find the mailing to be a true threat. A court measures a true threat objectively, by asking “whether, in light of the attendant circumstances, the words justifiably caused the recipient to fear violence.” Commonwealth v. Cruz, 495 Mass. 110, 113 (2024).

The jury could find that the defendant targeted the hacker because the hacker had helped start the investigation. The jury could also find that the mailing showed the hacker that the defendant could obtain his personal information and send mail to his home while sitting in jail. In addition, the Commonwealth must prove that the defendant was at least aware that others could regard the communication as threatening violence. The United States Supreme Court set that requirement in Counterman v. Colorado, 600 U.S. 66 (2023). The defendant did not raise that element on appeal.

The Reduced Sentence

After the trial, the judge sentenced the defendant and denied his timely motion to revise or revoke the sentence under Rule 29 of the Massachusetts Rules of Criminal Procedure. The judge treated the defendant’s later filings as a motion to reconsider that denial. The judge then asked the Probation Department for a Brief Risk Assessment for Violent Offending, known as a BRAVO report, from a program that did not exist at the original sentencing. After a hearing, almost two years after the original sentencing, the judge reduced the time the defendant had to serve in custody and revised his probation terms.

The Commonwealth argued that the judge could not rely on a report that did not exist at sentencing. On a motion to revise or revoke, a judge may not consider the defendant’s conduct after sentencing, which is a question for the parole board. Commonwealth v. DeJesus, 440 Mass. 147, 152 (2003). Commonwealth v. McGuinness, 421 Mass. 472, 476 n.4 (1995). The judge in Hayes stated that he did not rely on any rehabilitation after sentencing. He used the BRAVO report to analyze the information that existed at sentencing and to impose a just sentence. The Appeals Court held that the judge acted within his discretion.

Stalking and Harassment Prevention Order Cases After Hayes

Many stalking, criminal harassment, and harassment prevention order cases depend on messages from anonymous numbers, new accounts, or accounts that belong to someone else. In Hayes, the evidence connecting the messages to the defendant included screenshots and notes on his devices, account information on his devices for the women’s accounts that sent the threats, records of calls that matched the five missed calls, and the end of the threats once he was held in custody. A person accused of sending anonymous messages can contest each piece of that evidence, first when the judge decides whether to admit a message and again before the jury.

A person seeking a harassment prevention order should keep every message, login alert, and call record, and should report each one to the police when it happens. The woman in Hayes reported the keyed car, the email from the hospital, the hacker’s text, the missed calls, and the threats to her family. Serpa Law Office represents both plaintiffs and defendants in harassment prevention order cases, and defends people charged with stalking, criminal harassment, and violating a harassment prevention order.

Key Takeaways

• A phone search warrant that lists categories of evidence authorizes the police to search any file or application that could reasonably contain that evidence, including photographs and notes. Commonwealth v. Dorelas, 473 Mass. 496, 502 (2016).
• A defendant who claims that the police exceeded a search warrant bears the burden of showing that the search went beyond its terms.
• A jury may consider an email or text as the defendant’s message only if the jury finds, by a preponderance of the evidence, that the defendant wrote it. Commonwealth v. Meola, 95 Mass. App. Ct. 303, 313 (2019).
• The Commonwealth must still prove every element of every charge beyond a reasonable doubt.
• A mailing that uses a witness’s photograph and personal information to frighten the witness can be a true threat and witness intimidation under G.L. c. 268, § 13B.
• On a motion to revise or revoke a sentence, a judge may use a new assessment tool to analyze the information that existed at sentencing, but may not consider the defendant’s conduct after sentencing.
• In Commonwealth v. Hayes, Nos. 25-P-347 and 25-P-607 (Mass. App. Ct. Sept. 24, 2026), the Appeals Court upheld every conviction and the reduced sentence.

Related Serpa Law Office resources

• Charged With Violating a Massachusetts 258E Harassment Prevention Order: Contact, Defenses, and Penalties Under G.L. c. 258E, § 9
• Massachusetts Stalking Defense (M.G.L. c. 265, § 43)
• Massachusetts Criminal Harassment Defense (M.G.L. c. 265, § 43A)
• Digital Evidence in Massachusetts Criminal Cases: Admission and Objection
• Massachusetts Text Message and Phone Evidence FAQs
• Phone, Computer, and Digital Device Searches in Massachusetts
• Intimidation of a Witness (G.L. c. 268, § 13B)
• Threats to Commit a Crime in Massachusetts (G.L. c. 275, § 2)
• First Amendment Limits in Massachusetts Criminal Harassment and 258E Cases
• Correcting a Massachusetts Criminal Sentence: Rule 29, Rule 30(a), and the Limits of Finality
• Massachusetts 258E Harassment Prevention Orders: Defense and Plaintiff Representation