Broomall Man Accused Of Faking Racist Email Arraigned

BROOMALL, PA — The Delaware County man accused of creating a fake, racist email for a "news" article turned himself in and was arraigned Thursday, court records show. Nikolaos Tzima Hatziefstathiou, 25, of Broomall, was released on unsecured bail.

Hatziefstathiou, publisher of Philadelphia-based YC News, appeared for his preliminary arraignment on Thursday, July 25. 610-627-2292, chelsey price

Judge David Lang released him on $100,000 unsecured bail.

He is scheduled for an Aug. 29 preliminary hearing.

Hatziefstathiou is facing numerous charges. They are three counts of felony tampering with public records, three counts of tampering with records or identification, forgery, two counts of identity theft, attempted theft by deception, theft of property lost, mislaid, or delivered by mistake, receiving stolen property, prohibited offensive weapons, and four counts of unsworn falsification to authorities.

He is accused of creating fake email accounts posing as Stephanie Wash, a Good Morning America producer, and Liam Stack, a New York Times reporter, sending emails to the DA's office repeatedly asking for any reports and a comment regarding a claimed "decade long scheme" involving several "Delaware County agencies," authorities said.

One of these emails stated the sender was trying to get "first comment" on a story that was going to be released by Hatziefstathiou, "Chief Content Officer at Original Media Group" in Philadelphia.

The DA's office then contacted Wash and Stack and both said they did not send or write the emails.

Between April 30, 2019 and May 28, 2019, investigators got several search warrants for the fake email accounts and found that the falsified emails were sent from an electronic device at Hatziefstathiou's house in Broomall.

Through the investigation, authorities determined he used forged paperwork to get a PennDOT specialty plate identifying him as being employed full time by a news agency, the DA's office said.
On May 25, Hatziefstathiou posted the article with the purported racist email, claiming they got the email accidentally.

On June 5, a CID detective spoke with a supervisor at the Delaware County Adult Probation and Parole Office, who advised that Hatziefstathiou had been supervised by their office as a result of Hatziefstathiou's arrest and conviction for several counts of false reports to law enforcement and harassment.

During Hatziefstathiou's supervision, the probation supervisor would periodically email Hatziefstathiou's attorneys and carbon copy Hatziefstathiou on these emails.

On June 24, authorities executed a search warrant at Hatziefstathiou's Broomall home
Taken were numerous electronic devices of Hatziefstathiou's, a printed email from a Delaware County probation supervisor, and a stolen police-style Taser with two firing cartridges that was the property of a local Delaware County Police Department and was fired in June 2019.

The format of said email matched the format of the email featured in the article, but instead contained information in the body of the email related to Hatziefstathiou when he was on probation, the DA's office said.

The investigation into his electronic devices showed his Apple iPhone contained parts of the fake emails and that Hatziefstathiou's iPhone was used to create, send, and receive emails using the fraudulent accounts in the names of the legitimate Good Morning America producer and New York Times reporter, the DA's office said.

Investigators found the fake email on different devices seized from Hatziefstathiou. Located on his computer was a PDF copy of the probation supervisor's email that was located on the floor of Hatziefstathiou bedroom.

Detectives were able to identify the step by step process showing how Hatziestathiou created and posted the falsified racist document on the YC News website.

He created "black out strips" for purported redactions and placed them over parts of the supervisor's original email dated April 25, 2016, the DA's office said.

From May 24 to 25, 2019, Hatziestathiou created the content of the racist email, superimposed it over the real content of the supervisor's original email, superimposed the fraudulently created email over a YC News background, and posted it on the YC News website.

Other evidence located were photographs taken of the Delaware County Adult Probation office used for the published story and the use of an online photo editing program. Evidence recovered during the forensic examination identified Hatziestathiou as the possessor and sole user of the MacBook Pro computer used to create, edit, and post the offensive racially charged email investigated.

Multiple devices that belong to Hatziefstathiou were used to commit the above criminal offenses, the DA's office said. Hatziefstathiou used his iPhone to discuss the racist email with a local politician at the same time Hatziefstathiou was creating the email on his laptop.
Hatziefstathiou is set to turn himself in to authorities Thursday.

As part of the investigation, Delaware County's Department of Information Technology conducted a search for county and court emails with keywords in the email referenced by YC News and did not find evidence of any employee using language Hatziefstathiou reported.

Hatziefstathiou has previously had run-ins with law enforcement in Delaware County. In 2016, drug possession charges filed against him were dismissed in a bizarre case during which Hatziefstathiou allegedly set up a drug deal in order to turn the dealer over to local police.

Before that, he was charged with harassment for sending more than a dozen prostitutes to his neighbor in Broomall and then reported his neighbor for suspicious activity while he watched from his home, according to authorities. Authorities said he used racial slurs toward that neighbor.