Nebraska Man Sentenced for Cyberstalking

Acting United States Attorney Jan Sharp announced that Dennis Sryniawski, 48, of Bellevue, Nebraska, was sentenced on October 20, 2021 by United States District Judge Brian C. Buescher to twelve months and one day in prison, to be followed by three years of supervised release.  There is no parole in the federal system. Sryniawski must also pay a $10,000.00 fine.

A jury convicted Sryniawski of cyberstalking in June 2021, after a three-day jury trial.  This was the first cyberstalking conviction in the District of Nebraska.  The federal cyberstalking statute prohibits using an electronic communication service to engage in a course of conduct with the intent to harass, intimidate or cause substantial emotional distress to a person or immediate family members, where the conduct did cause, attempt to cause or reasonably would be expected to cause such persons to experience substantial emotional distress. 

The evidence presented at trial showed that Sryniawski sent six emails on two different days in 2018 to a candidate for the Nebraska Legislature.  The emails were sent from two different accounts.  One email was sent under Sryniawski’s name, but the others were sent under phony names.  Sryniawski had previously been married to the candidate’s wife.  The initial email contained personal details about the candidate’s wife and accusations concerning the candidate’s stepdaughter, and a later email included explicit photos purportedly of each.  The emails asked the candidate to withdraw from the race and conveyed the message that, if he did not, the personal details and explicit photos of his wife and stepdaughter would be released.   

This case was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the La Vista Police Department.