Text message leads to harassment charge

A Jackson man faces harassment charges stemming from the violent act he allegedly threatened to commmit in a text-message to a Jackson woman.

Aaron L. Flessner, 30, of Jackson was charged with a single misdemeanor count Thursday after Jackson police reviewed the text messages he sent to the woman during first weeks of April. At the time, Flessner and the woman were embroiled in a dispute.

Over the course of several days, Flessner used the text messaging function of his telephone to issue threats against the woman, police said. At least five threats received by the woman were shown to have originated from Flessner's telephone, said Sgt. Scott Eakers of the Jackson Police Department.

The worst message led to the misdemeanor charge, Eakers said.

"You shut my phone off I will burn you alive bitch youll never see it coming how would you like your kids to have a dead mommy," Flessner threatened, according to the documents filed with the charges.

The case is one of the first being prosecuted out of Jackson that deals with harassment via text messages, Eakers said.

"It is just like a regular phone call," he said. "There is a tracking system that leads back and forth to another person and you can trace that phone down to the owner and go from there."

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rkeller@semissourian.com

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