In September 2023, a man claiming to be Detective Steven Cooper of the Cary Police Department sent Verizon Wireless a fake search warrant demanding phone records from a Wake County woman who he falsely claimed was a homicide suspect, federal prosecutors say.
”Cooper,” it was later revealed, was actually a man from New Mexico named Robert Glauner. And the woman who he believed lived in Cary wasn’t a criminal suspect, but someone he was stalking after connecting with her online, prosecutors say.
Glauner faces multiple federal criminal charges. Today Verizon and he also face a civil lawsuit, filed by the woman whose phone records were released by the company.
In the lawsuit, the woman identified by initials “M.D.,” accuses Verizon of inflicting emotional distress through recklessness and negligence, as well as of violating the Stored Communications Act, which is designed to shield electronic communication from unauthorized third parties.
“This was a systemic failure on the part of Verizon,” attorney Amanda Dure of the Washington D.C. firm Pangia Law Group, who is representing M.D. in the case, told The News & Observer.
Verizon’s disclosures enabled Glauner to learn M.D.’s full name, new phone number, and her address — information which he used to escalate his harassment efforts, Dure said.
Filed in the Eastern District of North Carolina, the lawsuit requests a jury trial to settle potential punitive and compensatory damages against Verizon.
Verizon officials didn’t immediately respond to The News & Observer’s request for comment Monday morning.
Threats, calls and a menacing visit
According to the FBI, Glauner met the woman in August 2023 on the pornography website xhamster.com, which has a dating feature.
The woman gave Glauner her phone number but not her real name, instead using the alias “Mia,” according to a federal lawsuit the woman filed Monday in Raleigh against Glauner and Verizon.
M.D. “grew uncomfortable with Glauner” soon after they connected, and she eventually blocked his number, ccording to the lawsuit. Glauner then used alternative phone numbers to circumvent the block. When M.D. contacted the police, they advised her to change her phone number.
M.D. visited a Verizon store on or around Sept. 21 to have her number changed. She notified Verizon staff “she wished to change her number because she was being harassed,” according to the lawsuit. Her number was changed.
After obtaining M.D.’s new phone number from Verizon, Glauner resumed his harassment.
On Oct. 13, M.D.’s mother received a voice message from Glauner about his attempts to contact her daughter, according to the FBI affidavit. Between Oct. 13 to Oct. 22, the mother received 10 different voice messages from Glauner, who said “he wouldn’t stop until he could reach” M.D.
On Oct. 15, Glauner called the Raleigh Wake Emerging Communications Center under a different alias to request a welfare check on M.D.’s address, stating an occupant at the location was a suicide threat. The Raleigh Police Department identified it as a false call.
The next day, according to the FBI, Glauner sent Verizon another phony search warrant on M.D.’s phone number. RPD noticed similar formatting errors in the request (among other issues) and denied it. The same day, Oct. 16, M.D.’s father received a text from a phone number associated with Glauner that contained a picture of M.D. and the message “Do you know this girl?”
And on Oct. 19, M.D.’s coworker received a phone call from a man who asked to speak with M.D. He grew angry when the colleague lied and said no one by that name was working at the store.
The coworker recorded the conversation, and Raleigh Police identified the speaker as Glauner. He called M.D.’s store multiple times over the next few days, “and the frequency of the calls interrupted the employees and the business,” the affidavit states.
On Oct. 26, M.D. got a burner phone and provided this number to Glauner with the intention to limit the number of messages to her family and coworkers.
Law enforcement continued to investigate Glauner. They learned he was likely a New Mexico resident and was also wanted by the San Diego Sheriff’s Office for a stalking charge.
On Nov. 5, M.D. received a call from Glauner. He told he was on his way to Cary to see her. Later that day, she received a threatening text message from him which mentioned purchasing a gun and ammunition. “I can’t have you no one can,” he wrote, according to affidavit.
The next day, a Wake County magistrate judge issued a warrant for Glauner’s arrest. Authorities were tracking his phone activity and saw he was traveling toward Raleigh. For their safety, M.D. and her family had left their residence.
On the night of Nov. 6, RPD arrested Glauner as he was standing in a neighbor’s yard. In his possession was a black folding blade knife, the affidavit states, and authorities later found two bundles of rope in the car he drove to North Carolina.
Glauner also possessed two cell phones at the time of his arrest, one of which displayed an image of M.D. on its locked screen. He was taken to the Wake County Detention Center and served his outstanding warrants.
In January, federal officials indicted Glauner on three offenses including obtaining confidential phone records, making false statements, and obtaining phone records by claiming to be a detective with the Cary Police Department and submitting a false search warrant with a judge’s forged signature.
Verizon reviews requests for private information
Verizon, the largest U.S. cell carrier, dedicates a security team to assist law enforcement on court orders and subpoenas. The company has assured customers online “we carefully review each demand that we receive to ensure that it is valid.”
Cooper’s message contained several red flags later highlighted in a sworn affidavit from an FBI special agent.
The “search warrant” wasn’t properly formatted and lacked a standard form required under North Carolina law. It came not from an official government email, but instead via an encrypted private Proton address. And the Cary Police Department later confirmed Detective Steven Cooper didn’t exist.
In October of 2023, Raleigh Police Department detectives determined the warrant was counterfeit, according to the affidavit. The judge who purportedly signed the request, Gale Adams, is a real Superior Court Judge in Cumberland County, but she informed officials the signature displayed on the warrant wasn’t hers.
“Verizon’s dangerous actions directly endangered the safety of our client,” Dure said, adding “this was not simply an honest mistake. One sign of fraud occurred after another and another and another — and still this information was freely given.”
Source Agencies
