Long Island Man Charged With Stalking, Harassing Ex-Girlfriend

A Seaford man was arrested by federal agents on Wednesday and charged with harassing and stalking his ex-girlfriend, including mailing drugs to her college mailbox in the hopes of getting her kicked out of school.

According to prosecutors, Thomas Traficante, 23, was arrested at his home Wednesday morning on multiple charges of stalking and harassing his ex-girlfriend, a Long Island woman attending college upstate, as well as for mailing drugs. According to the complaint, after his girlfriend had broken up with him, Traficante began to harass and stalk her from October until mid-December. He accessed her online accounts and used them without permission and changed her passwords.

Prosecutors also say that, on multiple occasions, he sent packages of drugs to her school mailbox, seemingly in the hope of getting her kicked out of school so she would move back home and they could be together. Prosecutors say he sent her cocaine, MDMA and marijuana.

The woman was continually harassed while at school, prosecutors say, and the harassment extended to her friends. The woman was a member of a sorority on campus, and prosecutors say Traficante used online services to send threatening anonymous text messages to many of them, saying, "it's not safe out there tonight," along with many other threatening messages.

According to prosecutors, Traficante also posted the woman's contact information to prostitution websites, resulting in her getting dozens of unwanted phone calls, emails and text messages.

The harassment extended to the woman's home on Long Island as well, prosecutors say. One morning, the woman's father went outside to find that the window on her car had been shattered with a BB gun. Traficante had allegedly mentioned his BB gun to his ex-girlfriend before. In December, the woman received a package at home with a book titled "I Am Watching You," which is a novel that involves stalking and sending threatening letters. It was determined that the book was purchased with the woman's Amazon account that she had not used in years.

Photo: Shutterstock