Former nurse sentenced to 5 years for cyberstalking, harassing man he met on dating app

By Todd Feurer

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    CHICAGO, Illinois (WBBM) — A former Rush University Medical Center nurse has been sentenced to 5 years in prison, after he pleaded guilty to harassing and cyberstalking a man he met on a dating app, including setting up fake online profiles impersonating the victim, leading to hundreds of men showing up at the victim’s home seeking sex.

Cruz also admitted to sending nude photographs of the victim to his family, and falsely telling the victim’s mother that he’d committed suicide.

Kevin Cruz, 34, of Oak Park, Illinois, pleaded guilty last year to one count of sending electronic communications with the intent to harass and intimidate. On Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Seven Seeger sentenced him to 5 years in prison, and ordered him to pay the victim more than $17,000 in restitution.

According to the charges, Cruz met the victim on Grindr in August 2021. The victim, a personal trainer, initially exchanged phone numbers with Cruz, provided personal training sessions to him, and sent him nude photos of himself.

After a few months, when Cruz pursued a deeper romantic relationship, the victim said he wasn’t interested, and Cruz began setting up several profiles on various dating apps, impersonating the victim, and sharing near-nude photos of the victim.

Cruz then began communicating with users on those dating apps to set up meetings at the victim’s house for sex, resulting in hundreds of men showing up at the victim’s home seeking sex between December 2021 and February 2023.

In some cases, the people Cruz had contacted were told they should enter his home without knocking, and if the victim told them to stop, it was just part of a roleplaying game, and they should try to have sex with him anyway.

At one point, the victim moved out of his Oak Park apartment and moved in with his parents, but men kept showing up unannounced seeking sex. As a result, police stationed a patrol car outside his home to stop men from going in.

Cruz also sent the victim’s boss and family members nude photos of him multiple times in 2022, including his mother, brother, cousins, and aunts. He also sent the victim’s mother a text message in April 2022 falsely claiming the victim had committed suicide.

The victim obtained an order of protection against Cruz in Cook County Circuit Court in July 2022, prohibiting Cruz from contacting the victim in any way, or from coming within 1,000 feet of his home, or sending out any photographs of the victim, but the harassment continued, according to prosecutors.

As part of the FBI investigation into Cruz’s harassment, the victim arranged for a meeting on May 5, 2023, at a Starbucks in Villa Park.

Wearing a hidden camera while undercover agents set up surveillance, the victim asked Cruz to “Admit that it’s you like abusing my family . . . like all the messages from fake numbers to my family and to me. Like, it’s hundreds in a day,” according to the charges.

Cruz admitted, “It was all me. Is that what you want to hear?”

After walking out of the Starbucks and approaching the victim’s car, the victim asked Cruz “Ok, one last question is who wrote who wrote ‘ho’ on my car right here? Who wrote this on my car?”

When Cruz admitted it was him, the victim asked, “you keyed my car?” and Cruz said yes, according to the charges. Cruz then tried to block the victim from getting into his car, and FBI agents contacted local police, who escorted Cruz back to his own car.

After that meeting, Cruz continued to harass the victim, sending him text messages from “spoofed” phone numbers, sending flowers and food to his home, and leaving a handwritten message on his car, begging his forgiveness.

Cruz was arrested at his home on May 16, 2023, after he was spotted outside the gym where the victim worked, placing a note on the victim’s car.

Cruz has been accused of stalking other men. Cook County Circuit Court records show a Chicago man obtained an order of protection against him in 2011, only to have him send hundreds of text messages over the next two years.

A former co-worker at Rush also obtained a workplace protection order against him in 2022 after Cruz was fired by the hospital, which had launched its own independent investigation into Cruz’s harassment of the victim, who also worked at Rush at the time.

After he was fired, Cruz began sending repeated messages to former colleagues vowing to fight his termination and seeking their support to get his job back, prompting at least one former co-worker to obtain an order of protection against him.

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