Michigan mother pleads guilty in ‘catfishing’ of her own teen daughter

An Isabella County, Michigan woman accused of “catfishing” her daughter and another teen is set to be sentenced after entering guilty pleas to two charges.

Kendra Gail Licari, 42, pleaded guilty last week in Isabella County Trial Court to two counts of stalking a minor and is to be sentenced April 26 at 2 p.m. in Judge Mark Duthie’s Mt. Pleasant courtroom.

Stalking a minor is a five-year felony.

In exchange for the plea, Isabella County Prosecutor David Barberi dropped three additional charges – two counts of using a computer to communicate with another to commit a crime, and one count of obstruction, according to court records.

Licari was accused of catfishing – creating a fake internet persona through electronic messages – her daughter and one of her daughter’s friends beginning in October 2021 for nearly a year.

She is alleged to have made the messages appear to be coming from a fellow Beal City High School student, according to court records.

The scheme is alleged to have involved the use of virtual private networks to make it appear that the messages she was sending were actually from locations where Beal City students were traveling; one of which involved students going to the Upper Peninsula on a snowmobiling trip, according to previous reports.

Isabella County Sheriff Michael Main launched an investigation after Licari and another parent contacted Beal City school officials over what they called a campaign of cyberbullying.

Because it involved harassment off school property with devices not owned by the schools, district officials contacted the sheriff’s department.

During the investigation, Main contacted the FBI cybercrime unit in Bay City, and they tracked the messages using internet protocol addresses and phone number capturing – to Licari’s phone, according to court records.