A Vernal man has been sentenced in a case investigated by the FBI. United States Attorney Lesley A. Woods announced on Monday that 22-year-old Jonas D. Saunders, of Vernal, was sentenced on June 4th, in federal court in Lincoln, Nebraska, for one count of cyberstalking and one count of using a telecommunications device to abuse, threaten, and harass. United States District Judge Susan M. Bazis sentenced Saunders to a total of 24 months’ imprisonment. After Saunders’ release from prison, he will begin a 3-year term of supervised release. According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Saunders met Victim 1 in the fall of 2021 when they were both freshmen at the same university. A falling out occurred and Saunders eventually transferred schools. In February of 2025, after seeing Victim 1 was in a new relationship, Saunders began threatening and harassing Victim 1 online and through other methods of communication. Saunders’s threats and harassment extended to several of Victim 1’s family members and boyfriend whom he also directly threatened. Many of the threats involved threats to kill Victim 1 and her loved ones using extreme methods. Saunders’s actions included threats made on Instagram and X, through emails, and repeated calls to Victim 1 and her family. Further harassing actions of Saunders included seeking the assistance of a “hacker” to break into Victim 1’s accounts; sending a mass email to college students at Victim 1’s university exclaiming that Victim 1 was promiscuous and listing her email address; encouraging others on social media to contact Victim 1 and harass her further; and creating a website about her all with the intent to degrade, abuse, and harass her. Saunders’s conduct did not stop until police departments in both Victim 1’s and Saunders’s locations became involved. United States Attorney Lesley Woods said, “Cyberstalking terrorizes its victims and traps them in a living nightmare. Cyberstalkers can reach their victims anytime, day or night, and they are relentless in their harassment of victims. The United States Attorney’s Office will be equally relentless in its prosecution of these offenders.”
