New Canaan Police on Aug. 20 arrested a 36-year-old Norwalk man by warrant and charged him with two counts of unlawful dissemination of an intimate image following a months-long investigation involving his treatment of two ex-girlfriends, court records show.
Already arrested multiple times—the man had pleaded guilty to second-degree violation of conditions of release in 2021, third-degree stalking in 2023 and two counts of violation of a criminal protective order in 2024, the last two cases following New Canaan Police Department arrests—the man came to the attention of authorities again last fall.
On Nov. 21, a woman came to NCPD headquarters stating that “she had been contacted” by the man’s most recent girlfriend who “reached out to her via social media to inform her that [the man] had shown her videos” involving the man and her, the complainant, “in a sexual capacity,” Officer Austin Malizia said in an affidavit that forms the major part of an arrest warrant application signed Aug. 7 by state Superior Court judge Mary Elizabeth Reid.
The woman “stated that she came in now to file a report after multiple conversations with her therapist, who recommended she speak with the police,” the affidavit said. “[She] stated that she had never given [the man] consent to take these videos” and “that she had previously asked [him] to delete the videos and images of her in a sexual capacity which he did not.”
She told police that he probably had 15 to 20 videos and pictures of her on his cell phone “in a sexual capacity” as well as a “ ‘private folder’ on his cell phone and iPad with numerous videos and photos of another woman that he had been in a sexual relationship with,” the arrest warrant application said.
The man “had previously shown her sexually explicit videos of Victim 2, and would ‘compare’ the two of them,” it said.
Police contacted Victim 2, a prior girlfriend that he’d dated on-and-off for five years, who told them that during the relationship “she had been ‘coerced’ into many different situations,” that the man “ ‘forced’ her into taking sexually explicit videos and photos” and “she did not feel consent was an option,” Malizia said in the affidavit. He would “physically and emotionally abuse her” if she didn’t do what he asked, and after the relationship ended abruptly, “she was unable to ask [him] to delete anything from his possession,” the arrest warrant application said. (According to the application, the man had been arrested at the end of the relationship in 2019 “for domestic violence charges” such as stalking, harassment and disorderly conduct, then again for violating a protective order.)
In December, amid the investigation, the complainant said that the man had shown him photos of Victim 2, the ex-girlfriend, in which her face was clearly visible, and described the images in detail, the affidavit said.
Police in February obtained a search warrant for the man’s iCloud encrypted files on Apple, which were successfully decrypted in May, including all images and videos from 2014 to 2019, the arrest warrant application said. Malizia confirmed that sexually explicit images of Victim 2 could be found.
The man turned himself in to police on Aug. 20 and was held on $150,000 bond. He appeared in state Superior Court the following day. He has since been released on $75,000 bond, according to Connecticut Judicial Branch records. The man hasn’t yet pleaded and is now scheduled for arraignment Oct. 1. On the charges of assault, disorderly conduct and violation of a protective order he is being represented by Danbury-based Thibodeau Beadnell Law Group, the records show.
The Domestic Violence Crisis Center in Stamford provides services, support and education for the prevention and elimination of domestic violence. Its 24-hour hotline is 888-774-2900. To reach DVCC offices during regular business hours, the number is 203-588-9100. Services are free and confidential, multilingual and multicultural. Here’s a recent Q&A with the organization’s executive director. Here is information on the “Domestic Violence Survivor Support Fund” managed by the New Canaan Community Foundation.