‘Knife, rope and the intent to kill:’ Woman sues Verizon for giving contact information to alleged stalker

By Kathy Hanrahan and Chelsea Donovan

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    WAKE COUNTY, North Carolina (WRAL) — A Wake County woman is suing Verizon Wireless after she says the company provided her phone number, call logs and address to her alleged stalker, who was arrested at her home with a knife and rope.

The woman met Robert Glauner online in August 2023, but the relationship “quickly soured,” said the woman’s attorney, Amanda Dure. The woman blocked Glauner on her personal cell phone and online.

“Glauner disregarded (the woman’s) communications cut-off” and “repeatedly and continued contacting (her) against her wishes,” according to the lawsuit.

The woman said that police advised her to change her phone number, which she did in September 2023 at her local Verizon store, noting that she had been being harassed, according to the lawsuit filed in the U.S. Eastern District Court of North Carolina.

“She had about 10 days of peace,” Dure said.

The lawsuit alleges that Glauner emailed Verizon’s Security Assistance Team posing as “Detective Steven Cooper” of the Cary Police Department. Claiming to be with the homicide division, the email requested cell phone data and the full name of the subscriber and the new number assigned to her, under the premise that she had been seen at the scene of a homicide. A fake search warrant was attached, including a forged signature of a Wake County judge.

The request required the phone number of the “female suspect” claiming she had changed her phone number on Sept. 22, 2023, and sought “all cell phone data including records both outgoing and incoming, locations and text messages incoming and outgoing,” according to the lawsuit.

Later that day, Glauner contacted Verizon posing as Cooper to inquire about the records, claiming that the suspect was going “to flee to Puerto Rico” and requested the information be rushed.

On Oct. 5, 2023, Verizon provided Glauner with the woman’s phone records, which also provided him with her full name and address, according to the lawsuit. Days later, Glauner called Verizon again to ask how to read the records that were provided to him. An employee provided that information, according to the lawsuit.

“He was given her address,” Dure said. “He was given her contacts.”

Glauner was also given the woman’s new phone number, which he then sent a fake warrant to Verizon requesting complete cell phone data for, including “all incoming and outgoing calls, all text messages both incoming and outgoing, GPS coordinate for said number and all pictures being sent and received.”

Glauner allegedly posed as “Detective Kelle Gallagher of the White Oak Police Department” and sent another search warrant to Verizon requesting the information. He is accused of calling Verizon posing as the detective and requesting the woman’s cell phone information claiming the “suspect fleeing the country.”

“The detective he was posing as doesn’t even exist,” Dure said.

Beginning around Oct. 10, 2023, the woman’s mother said she received phone calls from Glauner trying to reach her daughter.

“Over the following week and a half, Glauner left numerous text messages and ten different voice messages threatening that he would ‘keep calling you, her friends, her job…I’m not going to stop until she messages me’ and ‘things are not gonna get any better for (her)’ if she kept ‘avoiding’ him,” the lawsuit stated.

Glauner also called Raleigh Wake Emergency Communications requesting a welfare check on the woman at her home address. Raleigh police followed up on the call and determined it to be false.

“It was a harassment campaign only made possible by the release of this information,” Dure said.

The woman’s father also received a text from Glauner with her photo asking him if he knew the girl in the photo. Glauner is also accused of calling the woman’s work and repeatedly asking for her.

The woman’s friends and family received harassing text messages that included threats to “come and climb into her bedroom window and then tie her up and rape her … I know where she lives since she gave me her address. And she wants me to take her from there and bring her back to my house. She says that I will own her then.”

The woman consulted law enforcement who advised her to use a Tracphone number and provide that to Glauner. On Nov. 5, Glauner told the woman he was coming to Cary and threatened to get a rifle and some ammunition. “If I can’t have you, no one can,” he wrote.

The woman contacted authorities and left her home. Authorities set up surveillance of her home and on Nov. 6, Glauner parked a block away from the woman’s home and hid in a neighbor’s yard.

Raleigh police arrested Glauner and a search found that he had a razor blade knife. In his car, police found two new bundles of rope, a glass meth pipe and eight grams of methamphetamine.

Glauner was indicted on Jan. 19, on eight counts of violation of federal law including stalking and feloniously traveling “with the intent to kill, injure, and harass [the woman].”

Glauner has charges of stalking in California as well.

The woman is seeking $75,000 in damages from Verizon. WRAL News has reached out to Verizon for comment but has not heard back.

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