Scott Gerhardt pleads guilty at Gympie court to stalking

A man’s vile campaign of stalking forced a woman, more than 1800km away, to beef-up security after he created a profile for her on fetish websites and messaged her up to 100 times a day.

Scott Gerhardt pleaded guilty in Gympie District Court on March 15, 2024, to one count of stalking the Melbourne woman, whom he had met at the end of August 2022 in an online Discord gaming server.

A 29-year-old man has been slapped with a 10-year restraining order after an extraordinary online stalking campaign against a woman included posing as her on fetish and sex websites and bombarding her with “excessive” online messages.

Scott Gerhardt pleaded guilty in Gympie District Court on Friday, March 14, to one count of stalking the Melbourne woman, whom he had met at the end of August 2022 in an online Discord gaming server.

Over the next three months Gerhardt carried out a campaign of behaviour which left the woman so scared she had security measures installed around her home 1800km away.

Gerhardt’s offending started after the woman, whom he regularly played games and chatted with online, turned down his request for the relationship to become intimate.

Crown prosecutor Rhys Byrne said in the ensuing months Gerhardt sent hundreds of messages to the woman on Facebook, at times between 50-100 in a day, many often deleted before the woman could read them.

The campaign escalated with Gerhardt threatening to send explicit images of the woman to her friends and family if she did not respond.

His offending did not stop there.

Gympie District Court heard Scott Gerhardt carried out a campaign of behaviour over three-months which left a woman so scared she had security measures installed at her home 1800km away.

Gerhardt created false profiles under her name on OnlyFans, an adult website which is well-known for the sharing of pornographic material, and FetView, an online sex fetish and bondage social website, and gave her contact details out to other people.

Mr Byrne said the 29-year-old also messaged other people to have them contact the victim, and arranged for a man unknown to the woman, to go to her home.

He told police he was “frustrated and angry and wanted to work it out (with the woman)”.

Gerhardt also sent her a package containing a necklace, a bank card in his name, and a letter telling her she could use the card as she wanted.

Defence barrister Phillip Hardcastle said Gerhardt, who was unemployed and lived with and cared for his parents, was “naive”, “inexperienced” and “really vulnerable”, but this did not excuse his behaviour.

“(Gerhardt) himself is a bit of a sad case, he has no real outlet,” Mr Hardcastle said, telling the court his client had volunteered at the Muster and worked at Eagle Boys Pizza until it was taken over.

Scott Gerhardt’s offending included creating a false OnlyFans account in the woman’s name and handing out her contact details to other people. Picture: Liam Beatty

Gerhardt had become “obsessed” with his communication with the woman, he said.

He had now been referred to a psychiatrist for help.

The court heard Gerhardt’s criminal record included similar offending between October 2018 and January 2019, in which he sent unwanted messages to a woman he met on Facebook and threatened to distribute intimate images of her to other people.

Judge Gary Long said Gerhardt’s explanation to police “does not make much sense”.

Judge Long said he “should not have to explain this” to someone of Gerhardt’s age but “this sort of behaviour is not acceptable”.

Gerhardt was given 15 months’ parole, and ordered not to have any contact with the woman for a decade.

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Originally published as Scott Gerhardt pleads guilty at Gympie court to stalking