• by Laurie Sullivan  @lauriesullivan, October 27, 2014

In a slap to Google's screening practices, a man working at the Mountain View, Calif.  company during a 26-month Internal Technology Residency Program (ITRP) was indicted earlier this month by the FBI for threatening to distribute naked photos of a woman unless she e-mailed him additional explicit photos and videos.

A FBI investigation alleges that 23-year-old Nicholas Rotundo posed as a researcher to get naked photos from a former University of Texas at Dallas classmate, reports The Smoking Gun Web site.

ITRP, offered in Ann Arbor, New York or Mountain View, teaches how to support Google’s technology from its corporate infrastructure to companies, and can result in a permanent position with Google. Rotundo was at the Mountain View Campus after graduating from the University of Texas at Dallas, where he studied management information systems and computer science. 

The U.S. District Court complaint alleges Rotundo began cyberstalking the University of Texas at Dallas student in June 2013, the month he began his Google residency.

The affidavit describes a series of e-mails sent by Rotundo to the woman claiming to conduct a “breast perception study,” a research project that requires the public’s perception of different breast types. Candidates were required to submit nude photographs of their breasts to be considered for participation in the study, which paid $4500. The sender’s name on the e-mails from breastperceptionstudy@gmail.com read "Women Study," reports The Smoking Gun.

Rotundo spent four days in custody before being freed on a $4500 unsecured bond. The pretrial conference scheduled for Dec. 15. As part of his release conditions, Rotundo has been prohibited from using the Internet in any way.