One-year prison sentence for man who lured A&M professor into online relationship that lead to suicide

Daniel Timothy Duplaisir was sentenced to one year in federal prison for using an underage relative to lure a Texas A&M University professor into a sexually explicit online relationship that led to blackmail. less Daniel Timothy Duplaisir was sentenced to one year in federal prison for using an underage relative to lure a Texas A&M University professor into a sexually explicit online relationship that led to ... more Image 1 of / 3 Caption Close One-year prison sentence for man who lured A&M professor into online relationship that lead to suicide 1 / 3 Back to Gallery

A Louisiana man was sentenced to one year in federal prison Monday for using an underage relative to lure a Texas A&M University professor into a sexually explicit online relationship that led to blackmail, and ended when the educator leapt to his death from a campus parking garage.

Daniel Timothy Duplaisir, 38, had demanded in insulting, obscenity-laced tirades that James Aune, chairman of the school's Communication Department, pay him to $5,000 to cover the cost of therapy for a supposedly transgender teenage relative.

"If I do not hear from you, I swear to God Almighty that police, your place of employment, students all over the Internet -- all of them -- will be able to see your conversations, texts and the pictures you sent," Duplaisir said one of several threatening messages as he sought to more and more money from the professor.

But in a final act on Jan. 8 2013, at 10:29 a.m. the 59-year-old professor turned the table on Duplaisir.

"Killing myself now. And U will be prosecuted for blackmail."

Much of the evidence that police used to track down Duplaisir and piece together the scheme came from the phone Aune had on him when he died as well as files retrieved from his office on campus.

The underage relative later told authorities that Duplaisir took nude photographs and videos of her, and that the two of them created an online profile that would be used to send he images to the men, according to an affidavit signed by an FBI agent. Duplaisir would later contact them and say he was an outraged relative and that they owed him money to pay for therapy.

The female relative is considered by authorities to be a victim of sexual abuse and she is not charged with a crime.

Duplaisir begged for mercy in at least two hand-scrawled letters to U.S. District Judge Lynn Hughes in which he blamed his crimes on mental illness.

"Please do the right thing for everybody and put me in a mental hospital so I can begin long-term care," he wrote. "I need help to stop being so twisted up and lost in my own mind."