Google worker arrested for cyberstalking

A Google employee from San Jose is facing federal charges in connection with the alleged cyberstalking of a former college classmate and a threat to reveal naked pictures of her if she didn’t send him more explicit photos and videos.

According to documents posted Friday on The Smoking Gun website, Nicholas Rotundo, 23, was arrested Oct. 4 after an investigation by the FBI and the University of Texas at Dallas. According to the FBI documents, Rotundo was an employee of Google in Mountain View and living in San Jose during the 15 months when the online harassment allegedly took place. It’s not known whether he is still employed by Google.

The alleged stalking began in June 2013 when a woman, identified in the FBI documents as a University of Texas at Dallas student, received an e-mail inviting her to join a research study on “the public’s perception of different breast types.” The invitation came from the e-mail address breastperceptionstudy @gmail.com. The woman’s named was blacked out in the FBI documents, and she is referred to as “CC” in most cases.

The sender asked that CC submit four naked photographs for the study, and in return she would receive $4,500 in compensation, according to the FBI documents. CC did not send the photos. Two weeks later another email arrived from the same address, this time offering $6,000. On Dec. 19, a third e-mail arrived offering $8,500. CC e-mailed photos of herself the next day.

On Jan. 26, CC received an unsettling message from another e-mail account, widgerword @gmail.com, which was associated with the name John Smarting. The new message stated that the sender had “stumbled across” naked photos of CC and would “make sure that nobody else” finds them, according to the FBI.

In exchange, he told her to send him several more naked photos — more explicit than the ones she’d originally sent — plus a video. He sent several more threatening e-mails over the next several days. He also advised her not to report the threats to authorities, stating that he could “cover (his) tracks better than that,” according to the FBI documents.

CC did go to University of Texas authorities, however, and an investigation was launched with the FBI.

Investigators requested Internet protocol address activity associated with the breastperceptionstudy and widgerword Gmail accounts. They found the same IP address associated with multiple logins on both accounts, and later traced that IP address to an Internet account belonging to “Google Nick Rotundo,” according to the FBI documents.

Investigators later used a search warrant to access e-mail in the widgerword account and found messages connecting Rotundo with the account. They also found evidence of photos taken of two other women, without their knowledge, via web cameras on their laptops, according to the documents.

Meanwhile, in April this year, authorities showed a photo of Rotundo to CC, who told them she recognized him from school. According to the FBI documents, Rotundo graduated from the University of Texas in May 2013, just before he started working at Google.

In mid-September, CC started to get more e-mails, including one that stated if she didn’t send more naked photos of herself, the original photos she sent would show up on a revenge-porn website, according to the FBI.

Rotundo was indicted on Oct. 8 by a federal grand jury on two charges of cyberstalking and one charge of computer intrusion. He pleaded not guilty and is free on $4,500 bond.

Erin Allday is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. E-mail: eallday@sfchronicle.com