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DAVID: AN OMAHA MAN ADMITS HE STALKED A WOMAN FOR 25 YEARS. HE SENT HER DISTURBING, VIOLENT, AND SEXUALLY EXPLICIT MAIL. JULIE: HE MAILED HER HUNDREDS OF POST CARDS. FEDERAL PROSECUTORS SAY WHEN HE MAILED A BOMB TO THE WOMAN LAST YEAR, INVESTIGATORS BUILT A CASE AGAINST HIM. TONIGHT, NEWSWATCH 7 INVESTIGATES THE STALKER FROM THE VICTIM’S PERSPECTIVE. THEY’RE WORDS USED AS WEAPONS. >> THIS IS JUST A SAMPLE OF EVERYTHING THAT I’VE RECEIVED OVER THE YEARS. JULIE: SHE SHARES A FEW OF THE VIOLENT, SEXUALLY EXPLICIT, AND THREATENING MESSAGES -- HUNDREDS OF PHOTOCOPIES OF POSTCARDS. THIS ONE, SAYING "THE LAST THING YOU’LL HEAR IS A CLICK." >> FOR A WHILE, THEY WERE COMING ABOUT EVERY THREE TO SIX MONTHS. THERE WAS A PERIOD OF TIME WHERE THEY WERE COMING EVERY WEEK. JULIE: A STALKER SENT THE CARDS TO GERIANNE JENSEN, HER HUSBAND, AND HER CHILDREN THROUGH THE U.S. MAIL. >> I PRETTY MUCH FILED POLICE REPORTS EVERY TIME I RECEIVED THEM. JULIE: THIS WIFE AND MOTHER OF TWO, STALKED FOR HER ENTIRE ADULT LIFE. >> A QUARTER OF A CENTURY THIS HAS BEEN GOING ON. JULIE: MORE THAN TWO DECADES AGO, SHE MET THIS MAN, CRAIG NEIDBALSKI, AT A CATHOLIC SINGLES GROUP IN OMAHA. >> WE SAID THIS IN THE PROTECTION ORDER HEARINGS, GALWAY, WE HAVE NOTHING TO SAY TO YOU, JUST LEAVE US ALONE. JULIE: THEY WENT ON ONE DATE. YOU DATED HIM ONCE IN 1988. ONCE. >> ONCE. AND I WAS FRIENDS WITH HIM AND HAD OTHER MALE FRIENDS IN THE CLUB. JULIE: HE SENT HER LETTERS, WHICH SHE RETURNED. AND THEN THE POSTCARDS STARTED COMING WITH NO RETURN ADDRESS. SHE’S FILED 70 POLICE REPORTS. >> ONE TIME, HE FOLLOWED ME INTO A WALMART STORE. JULIE: SHE’S HAD THREE PROTECTION ORDERS. >> THE DAY BEFORE TOM AND I WERE MARRIED, WE WERE DOWN AT THE COURTHOUSE FILING OUR FIRST PROTECTION ORDER AGAINST HIM, BECAUSE HE WAS LEAVING MESSAGES ON MY VOICE MAIL AT WORK. JULIE: YEARS LATER, SHE TRIED TO SUE HIM FOR EMOTIONAL DISTRESS. >> THE PROBLEM WAS THAT POLICE SAID WE NEED TO HAVE PHYSICAL EVIDENCE THAT HE WAS DOING IT. AND SOMETIMES, THEY’D GO TALK TO HIM. JULIE: IN 2003, A PIPE BOMB ARRIVED IN THE MAIL. >> THE FIRST BOMB I RECEIVED I WAS PREGNANT WITH OUR DAUGHTER 16 YEARS AGO. JULIE: STILL, POLICE CAN’T CONNECT IT TO THE SENDER. 16 MORE YEARS OF STALKING WOULD FOLLOW. >> EVERY TIME I’D GET SOMETHING IN THE MAIL, IT JUST MADE MY BLOOD BOIL. JULIE: AND THEN IN 2018, EVIDENCE TO FLIP THIS CASE -- ANOTHER BOMB IS MAILED TO THE HOUSE. THIS TIME, THE POSTAL INSPECTOR TRACKS AN ALTERED POSTAL BAR-CODE. A CODE UNCOVERED IN HIS COMPUTER. U.S. ATTORNEY JOE KELLY SAYS IT TOOK A WHILE, BUT THE STALKER IS CAUGHT NOW. >> YOU CAN’T HIDE. THERE’S NO SECRETS IN THE WORLD OF THE INTERNET. JULIE: DO YOU THINK THIS GUY WAS TRYING TO KILL YOU? >> IT’S ONE OF THOSE WHERE HE LEAVES US ALONE FOR A WHILE, BUT ALWAYS COMES BACK. JULIE: ALL EVIDENCE POINTS BACK TO THIS NOW 61-YEAR-OLD MAN. HE’S JAILED AND THERE’S A PLEA DEAL IN FEDERAL COURT. A JUDGE SENTENCES HIM TO FOUR YEARS IN PRISON FOR STALKING AND MAILING THE BOMB. >> BASICALLY, HE JUST NEEDS TO ROT IN JAIL AND NEVER BE ABLE TO STALK OR HARM ME OR MY FAMILY. JULIE: BUT THE FEAR, IT’S STILL THERE. >> I’M AFRAID BECAUSE OF THE UNKNOWN. JULIE: FEAR HIS JUDGEMENT DAY DOESN’T COME WITH A HARSH ENOUGH SENTENCE. >> HERE’S MY FEAR, HE WILL START ALL OVER AGAIN. JULIE: YOU DON’T THINK THIS IS OVER. >> ABSOLUTELY NOT, UNLESS HE’S PUT AWAY FOR A LONG TIME, THIS IS NOT OVER. >> WE’D KNOW WHERE TO GO, WOULDN’T WE? BUT SHE’S ENTITLED TO FEEL THAT WAY. SHE SHOULD. IT’S VERY NORMAL. JULIE: NIEDBALSKI WILL SERVE THREE MORE YEARS IN FEDERAL PRISON PLUS THREE YEARS OF SUPERVISED RELEASE I WAS IN FEDERAL COURT, AND JUDGE ROSSITER TOLD NEIDBALSKI IF HE CONTACTS OR COMES NEAR THE FAMILY, THERE WILL BE HELL TO PAY. THE POSTAL INSPECTOR PAUL BEEKHUISEN IS THE HERO HERE, HE COLLECTED THE EVIDENCE AND BUILT THE CASE BACKWARDS WITH TECHNOLOGY BETTER THAN IT WAS WHEN THIS CASE STARTED 25 YEARS AG

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An Omaha mom is on constant high alert, even after the man convicted of stalking her for 25 years and mailing her two pipe bombs is sentenced to more than four years in federal prison.“I just want to go on living my life without worrying about where he is or what he’s going to do next,” said Gerianne Jensen recently, as she covered her office conference room table with photocopies of postcards mailed to her home starting two dozen years ago. “This is just a sample of everything I’ve received over the years,” said the wife and mother of two teenagers. She said she has another huge box of the threatening mail at her home. Some of the messages are too vulgar and sexually explicit to share.They include hundreds of obscene messages and threats, hand-scrawled or typed on postcards and mailed to her starting in the early 1990s. The messages imply that the stalker was observing her and her family, intending to harm them.“I watch you. I watch you at home. I watch you at work. I watch you,” said the writing on one postcard.The creepiness factor ramped-up over the years. In 2007, one handwritten postcard read, “Loser. It does my heart good to know you still fear me. Craig.”“Craig” was actually Craig Niedbalski, a now 61-year-old man who Jensen knew in the late 1980s through a club for Catholic singles. She went on one date with him in 1988. “I was friends with him, and I had other male friends in the club. We’d go out to lunch. Go to dances. We were friends,” said Jensen.Jensen said the two were never romantically involved. She said he sent her gifts and flowers and she learned he kept a photo of her taped to the dashboard of his car. Niedbalski soon started writing Jensen letters, which she sometimes read, but then started returning, unopened. That’s when the postcards started coming, free of fingerprints and a return address.“He wanted to make sure I saw them,” said Jensen.Jensen said over the years, she and her husband took many precautions, installed an alarm system at home, carried guns and arranged for extra security at work. “The last thing you’ll hear is a click,” said one postcard. Niedbalski even phoned Jensen’s parish priest at St. Margaret Mary Church to make a case against Gerianne marrying Tom. The stalking continued through each year of their marriage. “The day before Tom and I were married, we were down at the courthouse applying for our first protection order against him because he was leaving messages on my voicemail at work,” said Jensen.Later, in other postcards, he threatened to poison the family’s sweet drinks in their home with antifreeze. Sometimes he would sign the postcards from "Tom" or he'd used the initials of mutual acquaintances. Over the years, Jensen filed 70 police reports. She had three protection orders and she said sometimes, police would go to his home and talk to the man. But the threats continued. Police could never build a case against him because there was no physical evidence tying him to the cards. Jensen said the first several years of postcards were destroyed when Omaha Police cleared them out of the evidence room because there was no case. In 2003, a pipe bomb arrived in the mail.“I was pregnant with our daughter at the time, 16 years ago,” said Jensen. Jensen said the Omaha Police Bomb Squad safely removed the package, but they could never find physical evidence to arrest Niedbalski.He even sent postcards to her employer and neighbors. One, he addressed to her children.“Your mommy and daddy brought you into this world. I will take you out,” it said. In 2014, this message came: “I’ve been to your home and I’m worried. How’s your gas meter? Craig.”Jensen emailed the Douglas County Attorney's office. Investigator Charlie Venditte responded and remembered her case from years before when he worked at the Omaha Police Department in the domestic violence unit. Shocked to hear the stalking continued, she said Venditte contacted the US Postal Inspector. Investigator Paul Beekhuizen took on the case in February of 2017. Jensen was told to alert Beekhuizen when any suspicious mail arrived. It took a year and a half of waiting for evidence. “And then when the bomb came in 2018, that was the kicker,” said Jensen.Niedbalski sent a second pipe bomb. Jensen would later learn the improvised explosive device included a cellphone wired to a pipe, capped on both ends, and filled with explosive powder. There were instructions to dial a phone number for “opening instructions,” implying that when she did, the package would explode. On Jan. 22, 2020, outside the sentencing hearing, Beekhuizen said he’d never seen a stalking case go on for decades. He said Niedbalski altered the postal bar-code on the bomb package. It’s forensic evidence Beekhuizen and investigator Bryce Hazuka would later find on the man’s computer hard drive when investigators took his devices. Postal investigators also found an old typewriter in Niedbalski’s house, which he used to edit threatening notes. Joe Kelly, U.S. Attorney for the District of Nebraska, whose office prosecuted the case, said, "You can't hide. There's no secrets in the world of the internet."Kelly credits Beekhuizen and the postal inspectors for digging deep into the stalker's devices. "There were 5 or 6 processes they had to go through to figure out where it came from," said Kelly. Kelly said his office is currently working on a number of cyber stalking cases, but he's never seen a stalking case with this much endurance. He said his office pushed for the maximum prison sentence under federal sentencing guidelines, which is 47 months. "You don't see that too often. The judge gave a very serious sentence for what was charged and we charged it in the most serious way we could," said Kelly. But Jensen said the sentence falls short. “I’m still feeling a lot of anger and fear because the plea bargain is 50 months,” said Jensen. Niedbalski agreed to the deal, pleading guilty to stalking and sending the explosive device. In her victim impact statement, which she read in court, Jensen said the man should spend a year in prison for each year he terrorized her family. Jensen and her husband of 22 years sat in the back of the courtroom holding hands during the hearing. “Here’s my fear: He’ll just start all over again. Unless he’s put away for a long time, it’s not over,” said Jensen. Kelly said if the stalking starts again, "We'd know to to go, wouldn't we? She's entitled to feel that way. She should It's very normal."The stalker's attorney said the man is sorry for his actions. “Mr. Niedbalski was very remorseful. That’s one of the reasons he wanted to take responsibility in taking this plea that was offered,” said his attorney, Robert Schaefer.Schaefer said his heart goes out to the Jensen family and that he’d never known anyone who’d been stalked for their entire adult life. Niedbalski, who’s been jailed for a year since he was federally indicted, has three more years to serve in federal prison, and he’ll spend another three years on supervised release. In court he said he started writing letters to Jensen to encourage dialogue.U.S. District Judge Robert Rossiter told Niedbalski, that’s not the way to do it.“You don’t get someone’s attention by repeatedly threatening them and their children with sexual comments. What you’ve done to this woman, this family, is unacceptable,” said Rossiter. Jensen said she has just one message for Niedbalski: “We’ve said this to him before. Go away and leave us alone.” Niedbalski spoke at the sentencing hearing, but Jensen said he fell far short of apologizing. “With all the things I’ve done, I’ve embarrassed myself and my family. I’m ashamed that I would treat someone with such disdain that at one time I held in such high esteem,” Niedbalski said. He told the judge he sent the letters when he was depressed. His attorney said he suggested Niedbalski take advantage of mental health programs in prison. Rossiter warned Niedbalski, telling him if he attempted to contact the family in any way upon his release, “There’d be hell to pay,” and he’d be back in court facing more prison time. Rossiter emphasized the 50-month sentence was more than what’s outlined in federal sentencing guidelines.“Basically, he needs to rot in jail and never be able to harm me or my family,” said Jensen.