A former doctoral student at the University of Salento was sentenced to 8 months in prison on charges of persecutory acts, for having sent dozens of threatening and denigrating emails to the director of the Center for Biomolecular Nanotechnologies of the Italian Institute of Technology in Lecce, accusing him unjustly (with the complicity of a researcher, who however did not file a complaint against him) of having prevented her from obtaining her doctorate.
Despite a previous warning from the police commissioner of Lecce, the doctoral student – a forty-year-old from Ceglie Messapica, in the province of Brindisi – starting from February 2020 and until December 24 of the following year, continued to harass and torment the victims via email, so much so that they fear for their safety.
The emails sent
«But are you even aware that I didn’t get my doctorate because of you? If you’re not even aware, you’re at tso. Sooner or later you will have it” one of the emails sent to the offended parties. Another message sent to the CBN director instead read: “You destroyed my life, you gave away articles and doctorates to pigs and pigs and you threatened me with death or dismissal if I reported it.”
And again: “Is it right for you to give the doctorate to everyone and not to me? Now I want revenge, justice doesn’t work anyway.” In the end, however, a judge found her guilty of stalking and she was sentenced.
