Is it illegal to threaten with a text message?

Question

Is it illegal to threaten with a text message?

Anonymous Feb 18, 2010 1 views 1 answers

After declining a second date with a guy, he started calling me 10 times a day, often calling, leaving no message and calling right back. My refusal to speak with him made him only angrier and he has since sent me a number of threatening text messages calling me a stupid C*** . He said that 'I was warned' and that I 'made my decision" ...that I had 'nooo idea what I was in store for' and that being such a C*** was a 'no no'. At one point I told him to leave me alone and he called again, only to leave a voice message that only said "too late." Okay I am pretty creeped out here. Obviously this guy has some mental issues. I know I should report this to the police but under the law do I have any rights? I don't want to further aggravate him because he is obviously not stable. Advice?

Andrew Pavlinski · Accepted Answer · 2026-06-15T10:30:22+00:00

I definately understand your desire to move on and to not provoke the guy. If you do nothing, he may go away over time. However, he may become a more real threat. Under these circumstances, you can go into court to request an order of protection. This is a court order prohibiting him from contacting you in any way. If he violates the order, you can have him arrested for violating the order. If you don't have an order of protection, you could call the police and report the harassment and threats (which you should do in any event to establish a record of the events through a police report), but depending on the jurisdiction you may have varied success with the police. The order of protection will require a hearing, which may aggrivate the situation to some degree, but you will have a relatively quick means to handle any harassment through the courts and police. You can petition the court on your own, or you can hire an attorney to help you. Feel free to contact me if you have any questions at [email protected] or via the link below.

Is it illegal to threaten with a text message?

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