Florida Representative Admits Harassing Married Attorney By Texting

Florida House Representative Richard L. Steinberg admitted to the Miami Herald that he was the one responsible for sending a whole bunch of unwanted text messages to a US Attorney from Florida and masking his name to do it. He is being investigated for criminal stalking.

Married Assistant U.S. Attorney Marlene Fernandez-Karavetsos started receiving anonymous creepy text messages from Steinberg, in which he messaged under the mysterious screen name, “itsjustme24680.”

Fernandez-Karavetsos told the Miami Electronic Crimes Task Force that she was receiving harassing messages from an anonymous account. Via a state subpoena, Arias traced “itsjsutme24680” to a Yahoo! account and a specific IP address. Miami Beach Police then subpoenaed Atlantic Broadband, who released that the IP address was associated with Steinberg, listing his Miami Beach street address.

Steinberg contacted the Miami Herald through a spokesman who released the following statement,

“I acknowledge and take full responsibility for sending inappropriate and unsolicited messages to Mrs. Marlene Fernandez-Karvetsos, whom I have known for more than 15 years. I deeply regret and wholeheartedly apologize for the disrespect that I have shown her, her husband and my constituents. Most importantly, words cannot express how sorry I am to my wife, for the disrespect I have shown her, and my entire family.”

It is amazing that anyone would think that in this day and age they could get away with these type of things. Text messages may as well be written in concrete for the whole world to see.

Do you think Representative Steinberg should resign over this?