By Maxine Bernstein
oregonlive.com
PORTLAND, Ore. — A state corrections lieutenant was arrested by the FBI on Thursday on a cyberstalking charge, accused of an “online campaign of harassment” against his ex-girlfriend, a fellow corrections department employee.
Lt. Jack Daniel Rowlett is accused of posting dozens of “degrading, harassing and false posts” about the woman over several months, Assistant U.S. Attorneys Arin C. Heinz and Natasha M. Geiling wrote in a memo filed Thursday in U.S. District Court in Portland.
The woman had obtained a state stalking order against Rowlett, and he, in turn, filed a civil defamation suit against her in state court.
“In a continued attempt to obfuscate detection,” the prosecutors said, he lied during a civil deposition under oath when he said that he never made any social media post about his ex-girlfriend.
Rowlett, 46, was arrested at his job at Columbia River Correctional Institution Thursday morning. Dressed in a black T-shirt and black pants, he made his first appearance in federal court Thursday afternoon on the one-count indictment before U.S. Magistrate Judge Jolie A. Russo .
Assistant Federal Public Defender Mark Ahlemeyer entered a not guilty plea on his behalf to the charge.
The judge granted Rowlett’s release pending trial. She ordered Rowlett to have no direct or indirect contact with the alleged victim and prohibited him from traveling to the city where his ex-girlfriend lives. She also ordered pretrial officers to place monitoring software on his electronic devices and prohibited Rowlett from creating or using any fake social media accounts in others’ names.
Heinz, the prosecutor, unsuccessfully argued for Rowlett’s continued detention, citing concerns that he will continue to intimidate and harass the victim.
Ahlemeyer countered that the last alleged cyberstalking allegation is 2 years old.
“Every step of the way, outside of the allegations in this case, this has been an upstanding citizen,” Ahlemeyer said. Rowlett, his lawyer said, has lived in Portland for more than 20 years, works as a corrections supervisor and previously served in the U.S. Army .
The state corrections department, which had previously investigated Rowlett based on the woman employee’s complaints of harassment, had moved Rowlett last year from one prison, Coffee Creek Correctional Institution , where his ex-girlfriend worked, to another, the Columbia River Correctional Institution .
Once at the Columbia River prison, he faced a separate complaint earlier this year that he had called a Black prison volunteer, Michael Fesser , “boy” when barging into his Going Home II prison re-entry class that Fesser was leading at the Northeast Portland institution.
After Rowlett’s arrest Thursday morning, the Oregon Department of Corrections notified staff that Rowlett is now barred from accessing the Columbia River Correctional Institution or any of the department’s facilities. He also was placed on unpaid leave Thursday pending a personnel hearing, according to Amber Campbell , department spokesperson.
The alleged stalking victim had obtained a temporary stalking order against Rowlett in 2024. He was placed on paid leave from his corrections job for about a year from Aug. 22, 2024 , until Sept. 15, 2025 , and then the state transferred him to the Northeast Portland prison.
According to federal prosecutors, Rowlett created two fake social media accounts, first posing as a man named “Cory Johnson,” and then as a man named “Mike Black,” to harass his ex-girlfriend online.
The FBI linked both accounts to Rowlett through IP addresses obtained using subpoenas and search warrants, the prosecutors wrote in a court memo.
“The digital evidence in this case is strong,” Heinz said in court. “IP addresses don’t lie.”
Rowlett is accused of using the accounts to post pictures anonymously of his ex-girlfriend on Facebook sites. For example, he posted her photos on one site referencing “Trans Girls,” and “crossdressers” with the caption, “Looking for a Daddy in Salem,” to solicit unwanted sexual attention from other men, according to the prosecutors. At other times, he posted anonymously, “in a falsified attempt to warn and brag to other men about her sexual proclivities,” the prosecutors’ memo said.
The woman and Rowlett met while they were both working at the woman’s prison and maintained a romantic relationship for about three years until an argument in January 2024 . At that time, she said in court papers, Rowlett threatened to “burn my (expletive) world down and anybody that’s ever touched me,” according to her court declaration. She told him not to contact her again.
From May through October 2024 , she said he posted her photo, name and information about her children on men’s-only Facebook groups with false and demeaning captions and comments that encouraged men to approach her in public.
She said at work he routinely tried to intimidate and harass her by hovering, lingering and staring her down and made direct verbal threats and threats by text message. Rowlett, she said in court papers, also was “very vocal” with other lieutenants and captains at the Coffee Creek prison about his anger towards her. Other staff told her they faced what they perceived as “retaliatory conduct” from him due to their friendship with her, according to her sworn court declaration.
In February 2025 , Salem police arrested Rowlett on a misdemeanor contempt charge filed in Marion County Circuit Court , accusing him of violating the woman’s stalking order by contacting her by text message a month earlier.
Ahlemeyer, Rowlett’s criminal defense lawyer, said Thursday in court that any text message sent to his ex-girlfriend was a mistake. He sent other Safeway receipts to her because he was still using a grocery store account that they had shared when they were a couple, Ahlemeyer said.
Months after his state arrest, Rowlett was transferred to work at Columbia River Correctional Institution in late September 2025 after spending most of his career working at Coffee Creek Correctional Institution . The Marion County District Attorney’s office last month dismissed the stalking contempt charge against Rowlett in lieu of the federal prosecution, court records show.
Rowlett has worked for the state corrections department since March 2008 , and his annual salary in 2025 was $99,419, state records show.
Rowlett has sued his ex-partner, alleging defamation. He alleged that his former girlfriend has spread misinformation about him with co-workers at the corrections department. Her lawyer, in turn, filed an anti-SLAPP motion, contending Rowlett is attempting to intimidate and silence her effort to defend herself. Both are pending in state court.
Rowlett’s conduct has frightened his ex-girlfriend, her lawyer Ashley R. Cadotte wrote in a court document.
“Harassing and stalking behavior by an ODOC employee in management has implications for the safety of other officers and for the adults in custody whom that officer oversees,” Cadotte wrote. “As such, there is a heightened public interest in the conduct of law enforcement officers and corrections officers.”
At Thursday’s court appearance, Heinz urged the magistrate judge to place Rowlett on GPS monitoring and home detention pending trial if she granted his release from custody.
But Ahlemeyer, his lawyer, successfully convinced the judge not to impose either of those conditions.
“If you put a GPS monitor on this man ...he’s going to lose his job,” Ahlemeyer argued, noting that he won’t be able to enter a state prison.
Ahlemeyer argued that Rowlett should not be penalized for filing a defamation suit or for having made internal complaints against others in the state corrections department.
“We want people to use the legal system,” Ahlemeyer argued. “That is how we all approve of settling differences.”
Rowlett also has been a whistleblower in the state corrections department, having confirmed an alleged sexual abuse of a prisoner by another corrections officer, his lawyer said in court. “He broke that thin blue line,” Ahlemeyer said. “He’s been labeled a rat.”
A tentative trial date in the cyberstalking case was set for Oct. 6 .
Campbell, the state corrections department spokesperson, said the department takes seriously allegations of employee misconduct. “We work closely with our law enforcement partners to ensure allegations of criminal conduct are thoroughly investigated,” she said by email.
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