WOMAN JAILED FOR STAGING HER OWN KIDNAP AND HARASSING EX-BOYFRIEND
A woman responsible for organising an online harassment campaign against her former boyfriend, fabricated a pregnancy, and staged a false kidnapping, has received a prison sentence of four and a half years.Jessica Nordquist, employed by an east London public relations firm, met her colleague Mark Weeks in July of the previous year.
Following the end of their brief relationship, the US national initiated a series of abusive actions against him, including sending messages to his clients accusing him of rape and creating at least 20 Instagram accounts to post similar accusations online.
The 26-year-old, originally from Alaska, even purchased a fake pregnancy bump via Amazon to deceive her victim into believing she was pregnant.
Additionally, she went to considerable lengths to make others think she had been kidnapped.
Nordquist was convicted of stalking, malicious communications, and perverting the course of justice during a five-week trial held in October.
She was sentenced at Snaresbrook Crown Court on Wednesday.
During the sentencing, Judge Paul Southern commented that her behaviour appeared to be influenced by childhood trauma, noting friends’ observations that her conduct was ‘completely out of character.’ He highlighted her intelligence, education, and lack of prior convictions, emphasising that she had moved to the UK to advance her career, which was now thwarted by her actions.
The judge described her conduct as bizarre, and pointed out that police requested a mental health assessment at the time of her arrest.
He acknowledged her early traumatic experiences as a factor shaping her personality, but clarified that this explanation did not justify her criminal behaviour.
Prosecutor Tyrone Silcott detailed her ‘sad descent’ from December 2017 to April 2018, during which she began sending malicious texts and emails, including false claims that her employer, Unruly—a PR agency where she worked as a campaign manager—was involved in a ‘rape cover-up.’ As her harassment intensified, she also targeted Mr Weeks’ friends and family.
Mr Silcott shared a victim impact statement, describing how the harassment left Mr Weeks feeling ‘unsafe in his own home,’ constantly fearful about what might happen next.
He recounted specific incidents of receiving texts from unknown numbers indicating that he, and his home, were being watched.
In April, Nordquist’s increasingly erratic behaviour culminated in a ‘bizarre’ attempt to fake her own kidnapping.
She sent an email claiming to be from a criminal group, including images of herself naked, bound, and gagged, asserting she had been abducted.
Police officers from the Metropolitan Police responded, visiting her flat in Whitechapel, where they found a distressed scene and a kidnapping note on her door.
Two days later, authorities located Nordquist safe at a bed and breakfast in Aviemore, Scotland.
She provided a false name and disposed of two mobile phones in a toilet bin during a medical check.
The motivation behind her kidnapping plot remains unclear, according to police.
The court sentenced her to two years and six months for stalking, two years for the kidnapping hoax, and imposed a concurrent two-year sentence for malicious communications.
She is required to serve at least half of her sentence in custody and is subject to an indefinite restraining order preventing contact with Mr Weeks and Olivia Goodman, an HR manager at her former employer.
