NETWATCH . . . STUDENT SEIZED FOR ELECTRONIC "RAPE"

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Jake Baker, a quiet, bespectacled University of Michigan sophomore, has just learned that a little creative writing on the Internet can lead to jail -- at least, when it's a fantasy about raping, torturing and murdering a real person. Baker, 20, was arrested in Ann Arbor for having posted a lurid sex-murder fantasy on the Usenet newsgroup alt.sex.stories last November. "Torture is foreplay, rape is romance, snuff (killing) is climax," one of Baker's messages read. Ordinarily, the story might never drawn outside attention, but Baker got into trouble for giving his fictional victim the name of a real female student in one of his classes. The university president had him escorted off campus when he learned of the postings last week. Yesterday, a federal judge charged Baker with sending threatening mail over interstate wires and ordered him held without bond. (He could face five years in prison if convicted.) Before the arrest, Baker told TIME correspondent Wendy Cole that he meant no harm to the woman, but he defended his right to free expression: "We're now seeing a shakedown about what should and shouldn't be on the Internet. And I've gotten caught up in the midst of it."