U.S. man jailed after FBI traced 1,100 IP addresses in cyberstalking case

A 25-year-old Bigfork man, Jeremiah Daniel Starr, was sentenced yesterday to 46 months in federal prison for a cyberstalking campaign that lasted nearly three years. The case is particularly chilling because the victim, identified as Jane Doe, believed Starr was her best friend, while he was secretly the person sending her threatening and frightening messages.

According to the Department of Justice (DoJ) press release, Starr went to great lengths to hide his tracks. He used more than 50 different phone numbers and a service called NordVPN, which is a tool used to hide a person’s digital location. Investigators from the FBI had to sift through over 1,100 distinct IP addresses to finally link the harassment back to Starr.

As the years went by, the harassment moved from the digital world into real-life violence. Court records reveal that on February 9, 2025, while the victim was asleep, Starr actually fired a gun into her apartment. In what US Attorney Kurt Alme described as an “elaborate ruse,” Starr then pretended to “return fire” at imaginary attackers, acting as if he were protecting her.

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