A model hopeful’s 10 years of torture
A man accused of using nude pictures to extort $19,000 from a woman whom he has been stalking for the past 10 years is to be tried in the Corporate Area Resident Magistrate’s Court on January 15.
The date was scheduled last Friday when Dave Stavrose appeared in court and was remanded after failing to take up his $40,000 bail.
The accused is alleged to have obtained pictures of the complainant from 2004. At the time, she was a 19-year-old aspiring model and was convinced by Stavrose that he could assist in getting her started in the modelling industry. Stavrose, the court heard, had told the complainant that he was a photographer.
Earlier this year Stavrose completed a nine-month sentence for throwing raw sewage on the complainant. That act, the court was told, was driven by his obsession with her.
The court heard that after Stavrose met the complainant in 2004 and told her he could help her get into modelling, he began asking her for sexual favours, which she refused. It was also disclosed that Stavrose enlarged the nude photographs of the complainant and distributed them in the plaza where she worked and even left one on the doorstep of her home.
The young woman was forced to leave her job and sometime after found another. But she again encountered Stavrose who, the court heard, resumed stalking her and harassing her for money, lunch and sex.
Stavrose is accused of threatening to resume distributing her photos if she did not comply with his requests, but she declined.
In March 2011, the complainant was on her way to work when Stavrose accosted her at the entrance to her workplace and demanded that she give him her BlackBerry phone as payment for gifts that he had given her. When she refused, he doused her with a container of raw sewage, after which he was held by men on the complex and beaten.
The complainant reported the matter and he was charged with assault at common law and assault occasioning bodily harm, which he admitted and was sentenced to nine months in prison.
However, it is reported that since January this year Stavrose has again been stalking and harassing the complainant, demanding that she compensate him for injuries sustained during the mob beating, or have sex with him, or have a child for him.
It was reported that he demanded $8,900 and threatened to publicise her nude photos if she did not pay him or have sex with him.
Stavrose then reportedly raised the extortion money to $19,000 and threatened to throw acid on the complainant and “turn her into a monkey” if she did not comply.
She reported the matter to the police and Stavrose was held at his home during a sting operation while collecting the money from the complainant.
Nude pictures of the complainant were reportedly found in Stavrose’s possession and he was charged with extortion.