A former deputy U.S. marshal was found guilty of a twisted “rape fantasy” plot to frame his former fiancée. Ian Diaz faces a possible 20-year sentence for his part in the scheme to send his former partner, Michelle Hadley, to jail for 88 days before she was exonerated.
In June 2016, Diaz and his wife, Angela, executed the plot after Diaz and Hadley had become embroiled in a dispute over a condo they had purchased together in 2015 in Anaheim, California. Angela falsely reported harassing messages from Hadley to the Anaheim police and obtained a restraining order against her. She used more than eight different email accounts to send the messages posing as Hadley. Then, Angela pretended to be Hadley and “responded to advertisements online, soliciting participants to engage in ‘rape fantasies’ and sexual acts resembling rape,” the Orange County District Attorney’s Office said in a press release.
Hadley was arrested and released the same day on bond, but Angela continued her unrelenting campaign, leading to Hadley’s second arrest a little over a month later. Hadley was held on $1 million bail and remained in jail for nearly three months until investigators discovered that Angela was behind the scheme. Hadley was fully exonerated by the Orange County District Attorney’s Office, while Angela pleaded guilty in 2017 in exchange for five years in state prison.
A federal probe into Diaz launched in 2017 revealed that he masterminded the entire plot, leading to his indictment in 2021 and his relief of duty as a criminal investigator in Los Angeles. A jury in the Central District of California convicted Ian of one count each of conspiracy to commit cyberstalking, cyberstalking, perjury, and obstructing a federal proceeding. He faces up to 20 years in prison when he is sentenced on June 30, 2023.
Hadley issued a statement after the conviction, expressing gratitude to the Justice Department and jury for their efforts. She said that the conviction “has brought so much peace to my family and restored some of the faith we lost in the justice system as a result of Diaz’s crimes against me.”
