Federal police arrested a former Los Angeles Airport Police Officer, Evan Baltierra, for allegedly stalking and harassing a World of Warcraft Twitch Streamer. Baltierra, 29, is due to appear in US District Court on Tuesday. according to the California Department of Justice.
Baltierra has allegedly been stalking and harassing a former Twitch streamer, known online as Nali, since 2020. Nali described the harassment in a TwitLonger post published in January, in which she said Baltierra had threatened her, her boyfriend and their families with violence and circulated images in which her face had been edited onto naked bodies. In a press release, the California Department of Justice noted that Baltierra first met the streamer at BlizzCon 2019, Blizzard Entertainment’s annual gaming convention, during a meet-and-greet with fans. He was previously a moderator of their Twitch stream, but after meeting them at BlizzCon, Nali removed him, according to an affidavit written by Federal Bureau of Investigations Special Agent Steven Wrathall and verified by Polygon.
The affidavit states that Baltierra’s harassment escalated from there before Nali, a Canada resident, filed a restraining order against Baltierra. (Nali said in her TwitLonger post that she raised money for a lawyer on GoFundMe.) A civil agreement was signed, in which Baltierra said he would stop harassing the streamer.
He is said to have continued to harass Nali and others connected to her, including sharing personal information – such as her full name and a post office box address – which he learned during the hearing. He is also said to have sent escalating threats of violence to Nali, her friends and family and attempted to hire a private investigator to find her address. He is also said to have used his background as a former US Marine and former Los Angeles World Police Officer as an intimidation tactic.
(According to the affidavit, Baltierra served in the Marines on “at least one combat deployment” and worked “briefly” as a police officer, “but did not complete his probationary period and resigned.” Polygon has reached out to the U.S. Marines and Los Angeles World press offices Airport Police for confirmation.)
Blizzard has reportedly banned Baltierra on multiple occasions — including a permanent ban World of Warcraft and its Battle.net platform due to the harassment. Baltierra attempted to appeal the bans but was denied, according to the affidavit. Blizzard also reportedly hired an “extra security person” for Nali at events, she told police, and Baltierra’s photo was distributed among security forces, describing Baltierra as someone who posed a threat.
On March 22, the FBI searched Baltierra’s home and found “many” of the streamer’s saved “Photoshop files” and evidence that he owned the email addresses from which a number of the harassing messages originated.
If convicted, he faces a maximum sentence of five years in federal prison.
