Maryland man faces jail time for harassing texts to officer who pulled him over

A Maryland man sent more than a dozen vulgar and insulting text messages to a police officer who pulled him over for an illegal right turn, and now he's facing criminal charges, according to The Washington Post.

Eugene Matusevitch received a traffic citation in November. He went to court, and during his short appearance he pleaded guilty and got off with a $50 fine, no conviction and no points against his driving record.

Apparently that wasn't good enough for him, because went to great lengths to dig up personal information about the officer and harass him in the following days. Now, he's been charged with three counts of obscene misuse of a phone and one count of harassing electronic communications.

Here are some of the texts he sent to officer Dominick Stanley of Montgomery County Police Department:

• “Nice job in court today playing up to the judge so he didn’t waive ticket. All good, I still make a lot of money.”
• “You there fatboy? On a donut break?”
• He somehow found out Stanley drives a Honda Civic, and insulted him for it: “No wonder you hate people like me with nice cars.”
• Matusevitch sent a Facebook message to the officer’s father, insulting the officer’s salary and calling him a glorified mall cop (as of last month, Matusevitch was unemployed).
• After the traffic court trial, Matusevitch texted Stanley 17 times in an hour. The texts included vulgarities, insults, and even Stanley's Social Security number and photos of the officer.

Stanley also received 21 phone calls from people saying they were following up on his inquiries about addiction treatment, which Stanley had never requested.

Stanley’s superiors say he is a productive officer who writes many tickets and deals with people in a “matter-of-fact, low-key” manner, and he was the district Officer of the Month in September.

It’s unclear how Matusevitch got the personal phone number and information to contact Stanley.

Matusevitch could face up to 10 years in jail for the messages. And it all started with an illegal turn.