Nicole Fiumara is a woman who has been through the worst of domestic violence. She is like many individuals who have used social media to find love online, but rather than a simple online connection, she found herself with someone she never expected. This is her story.

Fiumara's story begins with her being contacted by her abuser, Randon Keith, long before she knew who he really was. He said that he was a widow who had been married for 22 years, and that he could not go on without finding someone to share the rest of his life with. Most women are drawn to the idea of long-term commitment, which he expressed through their messages. Keith portrayed himself as a family man looking for a committed relationship.

"We talked for a while," Fiumara said. "I had even checked Google to see if anything came up with his background and nothing did."

Without any knowledge of his past, she continued talking with him before making the decision to bring him from Illinois to live with her. Keith stated that he had spent most of his money on his wife's funeral, causing Fiumara to pay for his flight expenses.

"On the day that I picked him up from the airport and brought him to my home, he shared with me that he was a registered sex offender," Fiumara said. "I questioned him about him registering and he kinda blew me off, telling me the story that when he was in his 20's, he had met a girl at an adult establishment and it turned out that she was 16."

In 1999, Keith did two years in prison because of his relationship with the young girl.

Fiumara, like many domestic violence victims, allowed him to justify his past. Keith told her that he had never committed another crime since then, and asked her to judge him by his character in the present.

"Two or so weeks after his arrival, he was arrested for not registering as a sex offender, and my mother was coming to visit a couple days later, " Fiumara said. "It had been the first time I had ever moved a man into my home so I panicked and bailed him out."

She put her house up for collateral and chose to keep it a secret. During this time, she was afraid that he would take off and that she would lose her money.

This is when things began to go downhill.

"I began to see the signs of manipulation," Fiumara said. "He would think my money was his money but his money was his money."

In the first two months that Keith lived with her, he borrowed $6,000. When she confronted him about paying back the money he owed, he stated that his wife would have never made him pay the money back.

"I also remember him saying that he thought I gave him that money out of the goodness of my heart," Fiumara said. "However, all along, he was saying 'may I borrow this money? I will pay you back' but when the time came to pay me back, he had no intentions."

During intimacy, Keith pressured her to do acts that she was not comfortable with by saying that if she loved him, she would do the things she was uncomfortable with. He used guilt to manipulate her.

"That was one of the biggest red flags, along with the money situation that came on early in the relationship," Fiumara said. "Also, I noticed he never slept. I mean the man would be up for days."

She noticed that he talked in weird tangents that didn't make sense, but to himself, he made perfect sense. He had a lot of paranoid behavior.

"Towards the end of the relationship, he was starting to disappear and not come home," Fiumara said. "I was catching him in lies."

She said that the last straw was when she woke up one morning and saw that her pain medication was gone.

"When I confronted him about taking it, he denied it and there was absolutely no other human being that was in our home that could have possibly taken it," Fiumara said. "That afternoon, I made the decision and contacted the bail bondsman."

She revoked his bond, paid for a bounty hunter, and had Keith arrested.

"Once he was incarcerated, I thought I would never see him again," Fiumara said. "While he was incarcerated, he continued to write letters and call collect no less than 20 times a day and up to 55 times a day."

She never answered any of the calls and only sent two postcards to say that the relationship was over. Despite this, Keith continued to believe that he was going to get out and return to her.

"There was some manipulation in the letters," Fiumara said. "For example, he started replacing my last name with his last name and calling me his wife."

"Finally, in November 2015, he was supposed to go to trial and I was supposed to testify against him," Fiumara said. "The day before trial, I received a phone call from the State Attorney's office informing me that they did not have what they needed to proceed with the trial and that they were dismissing the case."

Keith was released on a Tuesday, November 24th, 2015, and from then until November 27th, he began stalking her.

"I woke up on Thanksgiving morning 2015, I woke up to the text message of him indicating that he was HIV positive and knowingly and purposefully tried to infect me so that he and I would be bound together forever and that no other man would want me," Fiumara said. "Law enforcement opened up the misdemeanor stalking charge, however, they did not take the HIV seriously.

The following morning, she woke up to let her dog out and he snuck up on her. She held him at gunpoint and called 911. On that day Keith was arrested on a misdemeanor cyberstalking charge and was convicted. He received 364 days in prison.

"At the time, I did not have a restraining order because he was not supposed to be released but within the days following I went and got the restraining order," Fiumara said. "I also went and got myself tested and came back HIV negative, so at that point, I didn't really take what he said that seriously because I didn't have any proof until someone contacted me months later and told me that he was HIV positive."

She was then able to open up a nondisclosure of HIV charge because it turned out Keith learned he was HIV positive back in 1999 when he was in prison.

"In December 2015, he was charged with nondisclosure of HIV, " Fiumara said. "He was also charged with felony aggravated stalking because during the months prior he was still sending me letters from jail."

Keith will be released in approximately 2 years.

From this experience, Fiumara believes that the judicial system is flawed and that she shouldn't have trusted the State Attorney's office.

"The State Attorneys office went against my wishes and allowed him to take a plea," Fiumara said. "He pled to four years in state prison and four years of probation."

Bottom Line: This story expresses that it is best to take your time getting to know someone, and that criminal records do not always show up in Google searches.

"There are places you can go to for free to get HIV testing," Fiumara said. "If you ever find yourself involved in a case, it is imperative to attend as many hearings as you can and be as involved as possible. Lastly, document, document, document…"