A former Chicago resident who publicly boasted about paying social media followers to take pictures of his children and ex-partner in violation of a restraining order was arrested on fraud charges in Florida last week.
Micah Berkley, 41, had outstanding warrants in Cook County, Miami and Florida’s Palm Beach County at the time of his arrest, according to the Miami-Dade Police Department. He is being held without bond pending an extradition hearing later this month, according to records from Miami-Dade County Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.
He faces extradition to both Palm Beach and Cook counties, law enforcement records show. It’s unclear which jurisdiction will attempt to resolve its legal matters with him first, though both Illinois and Florida authorities said the criminal case out Palm Beach will likely take precedence.
Berkley — a computer whiz with a significant social media following — was featured in a recent Chicago Tribune story about cyberstalking and electronic harassment after he acknowledged paying strangers to take photos and videos of his twin daughters and their mother, Dominique Ward, despite a restraining order that barred him from harassing or intimidating them.
He told the Tribune he believed he had a First Amendment right to solicit the pictures and had paid about $6,000 for images in the past two years. He described it as “technological warfare” to fight back against custody and child support rulings that didn’t go his way.
The Tribune could not independently confirm he had paid that amount for the images. His social media posts, however, indicated he had people following Ward near her home, while shopping at Target and even at the girls’ school.
“I hear she’s scared,” Berkley said earlier this year. “She should be scared. She should be terrified. I want her to worry about who’s waiting on the corner whenever she walks outside.”
Unrelated to Berkley’s Facebook activity, a Cook County judge issued a body attachment for him earlier this year, allowing for his detainment in light of more than $50,000 in unpaid child support, records show. Such orders are similar to bench warrants, though they are rarely executed in civil cases where the subjects live out of state.
The court order — along with a video Berkley posted of a virtual court hearing, in violation of state law — allowed the Cook County sheriff’s office to become involved in Ward’s situation after the Chicago Police Department, the FBI and local prosecutors said they could not do anything about his social media posts. Though sheriff’s detectives typically do not get involved with out-of-state child support cases, concerns for Ward’s safety contributed to their decision to open a case, a spokesman said.
“It was concerning,” Cook County sheriff’s office spokesman Matthew Walberg said. “But there were other reasons to go and pursue the individual.”
Cook County sheriff’s detectives had worked with their Miami-Dade counterparts since March to locate Berkley, who also had an outstanding warrant in Miami after he allegedly failed to return a rental car and another in Palm Beach County on allegations that he assumed the identity of an Ohio man with a similar name, records show. His social media postings are not referenced in any of the arrest records made public late last week.
According to police reports, Berkley also provided a fake name and birthdate when he was arrested Aug. 28.
It was unclear from court records if Berkley has an attorney.
Ward and her attorney, Lindsay Nathan, spent several years trying to get law enforcement to investigate Berkley’s social media posts. Both expressed relief at Berkley’s arrest.
“He’s not in jail for anything related to the restraining order, but I’m glad he’s there,” Ward said. “I’ll get some peace for the first time in a very long time.”
Ward’s situation spotlighted how difficult it is for targets of electronic harassment and cyberstalking to have their concerns taken seriously.
Public records show Ward went to the Chicago Police Department at least twice to file an electronic harassment report since 2021. Each time, she says, officers told her it would be difficult to prove her former boyfriend was behind the keyboard when the messages were posted and that prosecutors would be reluctant to charge the case.
A Tribune analysis found the Chicago Police Department receives thousands of electronic harassment and cyberstalking complaints each year, more than a third of which are categorized as domestic-related. In 2023, for example, more than 2,400 people reported being electronically harassed or cyberstalked in Chicago — with more than 800 of them saying the alleged abuse was perpetrated by someone with whom they have a familial or intimate relationship.
Of those 824 domestic-related complaints last year, only nine — slightly more than 1% — resulted in an arrest.
It’s an arrest rate more than 15 times lower than other domestic crimes in 2023, including battery and order-of-protection violations. Of more commonly reported crimes, only those involving deception — such as pickpocketing, unauthorized credit card use and confidence games — have lower arrest rates.
Ward also has called on Meta — Facebook’s and Instagram’s parent company — to make it easier to report and remove problematic accounts. Despite Ward’s frequent requests to have Berkley’s pages removed, the social media company did not deactivate his account until Gov. JB Pritzker’s office intervened and demanded the pages be taken down.
A Meta spokesman has said the company could not discuss specific cases but stated that Facebook responds to requests from law enforcement to remove posts.
