tracking a criminal down electronically
tsally: I helped a friend out with an issue like this recently.  If you know his name, get a background check done on him.  That should give you plenty to go off of.  If you don't know his name, try figuring out which service provider his phone number is from.  I assume the email has stripped out the IP address in the headers?  If not, just plug that into one of the many databases available online.If all of that fails, try this.  Set up a webserver for which you have complete logging.  Then, send the guy an email from a different account with a link.  If somehow you can get him to visit your webserver, you can log his IP address.  This is completely legal and there's not even anything that underhanded about it.  You just need to get him to visit a webpage on your server.  The IP address will give you an ISP and a general location.  Armed with this data, you should have no trouble.EDIT: For those that are suggesting he post the info, I strongly advise against it.  Also, why would you track down someone when you don't even know the truthfulness of the original poster's story?  I don't believe he's lying, but that doesn't mean I would get personally involved.  There is a big difference between giving general advice and actually carrying out the action yourself.  Further, HN doesn't need to follow the type of witchhunt behaviour that often happens on other sites like Reddit.