Diana DeGarmo's Cyberstalker Sent to Slammer

Australian woman who pleaded guilty to four counts of stalking American Idol season-three runner-up gets 26 months in jail

By Gina Serpe May 29, 2009 1:44 PMTags
Diana DeGarmo Jemal Countess/Getty images

Clay Aiken's not the only Idol alum back in the news.

Diana DeGarmo is also making a return to the spotlight, albeit not for (de)riding on anyone's coattails. Instead, the Australian woman who pleaded guilty to four counts of cyberstalking the American Idol finalist has just been sentenced to 26 months in jail.

Tanya Maree Quattrocchi, 23, admitted to hacking into DeGarmo's MySpace account and hijacking email accounts belonging to the 21-year-old singer.

"It is important that you understand the fact you perpetrated your offending using cyberspace does not diminish its significance," Victorian County Court Judge Lisa Hannan told Quattrocchi.

Quattrocchi's defense tried to lessen her punishment by announcing in court that she suffers from Asperger's syndrome. Unfortunately for her, it was also revealed that Quattrochi told a doctor she felt she had been wronged and planned to pen a tell-all about her experience—which led the judge to believe the defendant showed no remorse for her actions.

Hannan added that online victims such as DeGarmo, who finished second to Fantasia on the third season of the show, were particularly susceptible targets, as they "are constantly vulnerable."

"There is no way they can redress many of the lies you have told."

In addition to hacking into the singer's accounts, Quattrocchi sent emails pretending to be DeGarmo to the reality star's mother and roommate detailing fictional accounts of DeGarmo's sex life. She was literally caught red-handed back in January, when she was arrested while sitting at a computer, typing out an email in which she was pretending to be DeGarmo's mother.

All told, Quattrocchi texted DeGarmo 570 times and called her 369 times in a three-month period. She was found to have illegally accessed the singer's MySpace page more than 700 times in six months.

The Melbourne native was ordered to serve 150 hours' community service back in 2007 for cyberstalking and blackmail charges relating to DeGarmo, after pretending to be a 14-year-old fan to gain access to DeGarmo's MySpace page and then hacking into her emails.

But six months after her sentencing, Quattrocchi began round two, sending emails to DeGarmo's friends and family pretending to be the singer.

Quattrocchi will be eligible for parole after 12 months behind bars.

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