At dawn on Thursday, the Virginia State Police, at the request of State Police detectives in Connecticut, served a search warrant on the suburban Washington, D.C. home of Paul Boyne. The warrant, signed by a Virginia judge, authorized a search for evidence of threatening or intimidating electronic communications, according to Connecticut authorities and Boyne.
The search of Boyne’s home comes at a time when law enforcement, the state judiciary and anti-hate groups such as the Anti-Defamation League of Connecticut have become concerned about anonymous, antisemitic, racist and misogynistic internet screeds, many of which appear written to incite violence against judges in the state family court system who handle contentious and sometimes ruinously expensive divorces.
In some cases, the state Judicial Branch has increased security as a result of perceived internet threats.
The warrant has been sealed, along with a supporting affidavit by two Connecticut State police detectives describing evidence they claim supports a basis to suspect Boyne has allegedly been involved in ongoing, threatening internet communications.
An earlier federal warrant, which was the basis for a similar search of Boyne’s home in 2017, has been unsealed. That search was part of an FBI-Connecticut State Police investigation of alleged cyber stalking and interstate threats. Filings in federal courts in Connecticut and Virginia show that the FBI obtained records from companies such as Google, Facebook and Twitter that connected Boyne’s home and computer address to phony social media and email accounts that, in the view of authorities, were allegedly used to harass judges.
Among other things, according to the unsealed federal files, the FBI obtained records showing email exchanges between Boyne and Edward Taupier of Cromwell, who was convicted and imprisoned in 2015 for threatening to shoot a judge involved in his divorce. An email written by Taupier contained information about the judge’s home, the distance from her bedroom to a nearby cemetery and ammunition that could be used to shoot her, according to testimony at his trial.
According to the federal warrant affidavit, a 2016 Twitter posting the FBI said was linked to Boyne’s home address, asked, in all capital letters, whether the judge singled out by Taupier was “in your life?” and answered the question, also in all capital letters, with “keep calm and reload. aim. shoot again.”
More recently, law enforcement has become concerned by an anonymous internet blog that targets judges with vile and abusive posts. It also has published a photograph of a judge inside what appears to be a gun site. Another post contains a photograph of a judge beside an enlarged bullet. Still other posts contain a photographs of an elected official’s children and the wives of judges and political figures.
Superior Court Judge Gerard Adelman, a frequent target of the blog, referred to it in a decision he wrote on an exceptionally contentious divorce. At about the time Adelman was writing the decision, one of the lawyers who appeared before him was disbarred for making allegedly antisemitic claims similar to those showcased on the blog. Among the claims: a corrupt conspiracy of judges and lawyers is steering lucrative legal work.
“This blog, produced by an unnamed person, is filled with anti-Semitic, homophobic and racist rants of the worst kind,” Adelman wrote in the court document. “It is based on the belief that the entire family law bench and bar in Connecticut and other states are being controlled by a mysterious Jewish cabal in order to steal children away from loving parents and give them to rapists and pedophiles.”
The state police and judiciary would not discuss the latest search of Boyne’s home. But a senior state police commander said last week in response to a question about the search, “We have a number of investigations open regarding this subject.”
Boyne acknowledged the search but said little more in telephone conversations last week. He provided the Courant with what he said in an email were a half dozen motions he filed in Fairfax County, Virginia circuit court challenging the search, demanding the return of two computers and a telephone, and accusing the authorities of misconduct.
The federal investigation associated with the 2017 search lasted more than a year, but ended without an arrest. The FBI and federal prosecutors involved will not discuss the case, but others have theorized there may have been a conclusion that the internet communications it uncovered were protected by First Amendment guarantees.
People involved in last week’s search said legislation enacted last year to enhance state laws against hate crimes may give law enforcement more leverage in fighting cyber harassment. The warrant served last week on Boyne’s residence authorized the state police to search for evidence of the crimes of intimidation based on bigotry or bias, threatening and inciting injury to persons or property - all crimes affected by last year’s legislation.
Additional crimes could be charged, such as under another 2021 law that criminalizes doxing - the publication of private or identifying information about specific people on the internet with malicious intent, an official involved in the investigation said.
The latest search warrant was signed by a Virginia judge and served by the Virginia State Police because Connecticut law enforcement lacks the authority to do so in other states. Two Connecticut detectives were present and the seized electronic equipment has been transported to Connecticut where it will be examined, officials said.
Should Boyne travel to Connecticut he faces arrest on an entirely different charge. During Boyne’s divorce in the Connecticut courts, he was charged in 2013 with breach of peace, according to a law enforcement affidavit, for raising his voice and swinging a leather satchel “in a threatening way” at a lawyer who was representing him in a child support and child custody hearing in the family court. He left the state before the charge was adjudicated.
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