On Oct. 17, Damian Williams, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New, announced the conviction in federal court of WILLIE DENNIS for cyberstalking three victims, all his former colleagues at a global law firm (the “Law Firm”). The jury convicted DENNIS today following a one-week trial before U.S. District Judge Jed S. Rakoff.
U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said: “Willie Dennis, a former law firm partner in Manhattan, has been convicted of waging a relentless cyberstalking campaign against his own former colleagues. By texts, emails, and other threatening communications — sometimes hundreds per day — Dennis terrified his former colleagues to the point they had serious concerns for their own safety. Today, a unanimous jury has made sure that Dennis is accountable for his years-long harassment of his former law partners.”
According to the Indictment, documents previously filed in the case, and the evidence introduced at trial:
WILLIE DENNIS, a former partner at the Law Firm, engaged in a years-long campaign of harassment, intimidation, and threats against multiple individuals, including the three victims in this case, all partners at the Law Firm. As part of that campaign, DENNIS sent the victims thousands of harassing, threatening, and intimidating emails and text messages, back-to-back, at all hours of the day and night. DENNIS targeted the victims, their families, and threatened their physical safety. He demeaned them, called them racist names, and warned them that they would become “biblical symbols.” In his threats, he told one victim to “sleep with one eye open.”
DENNIS, 60, of New York, New York, was convicted of three counts of cyberstalking. Each count carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison.
The maximum potential sentence in this case is prescribed by Congress and is provided here for informational purposes only, as any sentencing of the defendant would be determined by the judge.
Mr. Williams praised the outstanding investigative work of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
The prosecution of this case is being handled by the Office’s General Crimes Unit. Assistant United States Attorneys Sarah L. Kushner, Stephanie Simon, and Kimberly Ravener are in charge of the prosecution.
Published reports claims that firing of Dennis, who was let go in May 2019, did not end amicably with the firm, and that Dennis filed suit against K&L Gates, the firm that was not indentified by the U.S. Attorney in their release, in 2020 because of what Dennis called the firm’s alleged “culture of sexual misconduct.
Bloomberg Law reported last year that “the messages included sexist, racist, anti-Semitic and physically threatening statements, the firm said. The firm said he told a Jewish lawyer to “start the ovens,” referred to an Asian-American lawyer as “Wuhan,” and also used racial epithets to refer to other Black lawyers.”
