A two year-long hell for one streamer of World of Warcraft is hopefully coming to an end. Evan Baltierra, a former Los Angeles World Airport Police officer, has been arrested for harassing and stalking a popular female streamer of the game who goes by the name of Nali.
According to an affidavit, the alleged stalking started after Baltierra was politely refused by Nali to be his “valentine” during a fan meet and greet at BlizzCon 2019. From there, Baltierra allegedly “orchestrated a campaign of harassment targeting the victim, her boyfriend, her friends,and her boyfriend’s family” as far back as July 2020, including continued unwanted contact with Nali and those close to her through direct messaging, pornographic postings of her face photoshopped onto naked photo models, and breaking of a restraining order. A search warrant executed by police in March 2022 reportedly found a thumb drive of the aforementioned pornographic material, as well as evidence of email accounts he used to send harassing messages.
Blizzard had also taken measures to stop Baltierra from approaching Nali, as he was reportedly banned by Blizzard multiple times from WoW and Battle.net (including a permaban), had his photo distributed to Blizzard event security personnel and noted as a threat, and assigned Nali an extra security detail at events.
Baltierra is charged with one count of stalking, and investigation by the FBI is ongoing. If convicted, he faces a statutory maximum sentence of five years in federal prison.
