Opinion ID: 6349245
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: the spurned applicant turns cyberstalker

Text: Yung wanted to go to Georgetown Law. He had good grades and strong test scores. So Georgetown invited him to interview with an alumnus. But that interview went poorly. Yung thought his interviewer was insensitive and rude. And a few weeks later, Georgetown rejected him. Though Yung eventually got into a good law school, Georgetown’s rejection still stung. So a year later, he struck back against the interviewer. First, he launched a cybercampaign: he created fake obituaries for the interviewer’s wife and son; social-media profiles littered with Ku Klux Klan content in the interviewer’s name; and blog posts as the interviewer, bragging about raping women, a boy, and an eightyear-old girl. A Google search of the interviewer’s name revealed thousands of similar posts. As a reader of the posts remarked: “Someone is really out to nail this guy to a cross.” JA 219. Next, Yung filed false reports. Posing as a female Georgetown applicant on law school fora, he accused the interviewer of groping, bigotry, and threatening professional retaliation. And in reports to the Better Business Bureau, he accused the interviewer of sexually assaulting a female associate and berating prospective employees. He “strongly encouraged [the interviewer’s employer] to fire this dirty old man.” JA 176. Yung’s cyber-harassment spilled over into the real world. Impersonating the interviewer’s wife, he published an online ad seeking a sex slave. When one man responded to the ad, Yung ordered him to spy on the family. The wife, another ad 3 claimed, “like[d] it when a man puts his hand around [her] throat and threaten[s] [her] with a knife” and “gun” before forcing her to have sex. JA 168. Because of Yung’s antics, the interviewer’s family got hundreds of phone calls from men seeking sex with the interviewer, his wife, or their son. “[Y]ou pick up the phone and the first thing they ask is how big is your … genitalia,” the interviewer testified. JA 325. Responding to other sexual ads, strange men even came to the interviewer’s home in the wee hours of three consecutive mornings. This harassment campaign turned the family’s life into a “nightmare.” JA 295. They were terrified that every strange visitor sought to “rape and murder” them. JA 296. They worked with police to plan safe hiding places in their home in case someone broke in. They disconnected their phone every night and quit walking around the neighborhood. And they feared that they would “never know [normalcy] again.” JA 296. Because the family’s son studied at Georgetown, the family informed it of the threat. Georgetown worried that the son would be targeted there too, so it added security. Eventually, the interviewer hired lawyers and cyber-investigators, “begging” them to track down the puppeteer. JA 162. Working with the FBI, the investigators traced it all back to Yung. Yung was charged with cyberstalking. 18 U.S.C. §§ 2261A(2)(B) & 2261(b). Faced with a mountain of evidence, he challenged the cyberstalking law as overbroad under the First Amendment. But when that challenge failed, he 4 pleaded guilty. Though he waived most of his right to appeal, he reserved his right to appeal the overbreadth ruling and any sentence above the statutory maximum. Yung was sentenced to nearly four years in prison plus three years of probation. He was also ordered to pay restitution for the interviewer’s investigative costs (nearly $70,000) and Georgetown’s security measures ($130,000). On appeal, Yung revives his overbreadth challenge and contests the restitution order. The government responds that his plea agreement lets him appeal only overbreadth, not restitution. We review each issue de novo. United States v. Gonzalez, 905 F.3d 165, 190 (3d Cir. 2018); United States v. Quillen, 335 F.3d 219, 221 (3d Cir. 2003).