The legal situation surrounding Liv Morgan’s alleged stalker, Shawn Chan, is far more serious than it first appeared—and now, a retired detective is breaking down exactly how a Florida burglary case turned into a full-blown federal stalking indictment.
During an episode of Going Ringside, host Scott Johnson asked retired detective Tom Hackney to explain how Chan’s charges were upgraded after his disturbing attempt to break into Morgan’s Florida home. Johnson pointed out that Chan’s initial charge sounded relatively minor.
“I want to talk to you about the upgrading of charges here. So I’m looking at the original complaint affidavit out of Pasco County. It says that it was burglary in an unoccupied dwelling, unarmed — which to me doesn’t sound like that big of a deal. Then the feds get involved — I’m looking at the indictment from the grand jury — it’s upgraded to interstate stalking. Can you talk to me about the dynamics of how this worked its way from a looks-like-slap-on-the-wrist-type crime at the local level to much more serious at the federal level?”
Hackney wasted no time explaining that even at the state level, burglary is no joke—but the federal stalking charge takes things to an entirely different level.
“Yeah, so, you know, the burglary portion of it is — that’s a serious state crime. That’s a felony and can wind him up in state prison. So he would have gone to jail — that’s a felony, so that’s more than a year. And the fact that it’s unarmed and it’s unoccupied are different variations of that here in the state of Florida.”
Hackney then explained how the FBI stepped in, using federal stalking laws because of how Chan crossed international and state lines to target Morgan.
“But when you bring in the FBI component from the federal standpoint, they have different charges that they can use. And here is the one that they chose because he did — he came from another country, basically traveled over at least all the other states to get to Florida in the air — but that’s part of that interstate travel that’s mentioned in there for the stalking.”
The biggest factor? Fear. Hackney made it clear that both state and federal stalking laws revolve around whether the victim was placed in legitimate fear—and in Morgan’s case, the answer was obvious.
“And the fear component — stalking has a major, both federal and state, a major component of fear that the person is placed in fear. And this certainly rings all those bells because it’s frightening to read. And when you think about her and what she had to learn, and all this is going on while she’s not home, and this guy is sitting on her front porch — that’s fear. That’s fear with a capital F right there, Scott.”
Chan, a Canadian citizen, is now facing federal interstate stalking charges after traveling from Canada to Florida, attempting to access Morgan’s home, and leaving behind a disturbing handwritten note full of paranoia and resentment.
The federal charge carries far heavier penalties than the original state-level burglary charge and reflects how seriously authorities are taking the situation.
This whole situation just shows how quickly a so-called “friendly visit” can turn into something dangerous—and how the legal system isn’t playing around when it comes to protecting public figures. With federal charges now hanging over his head, Shawn Chan’s creepy obsession with Liv Morgan could land him behind bars for a long time.
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