PHONE HARASSMENT BY EX
DON’T CALL MEANS… DON’T CALL!!
ESPECIALLY IN CHAMPAIGN COUNTY
During a divorce, it is common that the non-initiating spouse will be devastated and attempt what appears to be reasonable contact with the other spouse, in an often futile effort to reconcile. However, in all scenarios, when the lovelorn hears NO as to contact, telephonic or otherwise, it is best to heed that demand, and instead call a friend…or better yet….an attorney!
In a case out of Champaign County, a man who had been in a relationship with a woman for about two years, ended up having his heart apparently broken when she broke up with him in 2011 (and then married someone else). So distraught, he apparently made contact with her that year in such a way that she filed an action against him for disorderly conduct and telephone harassment. He was court ordered to have committed a misdemeanor offense, given community control sanctions and the court further ordered him not to have any contact with her or her new husband.
Then, the next year (2012) the man called his ex-girlfriend twice, hanging up at the end of the first two minute phone call, and hanging up at the end of a one minute phone call. The ex-girlfriend pursued this with the authorities as a violation of the earlier order of the court. When asked by the authorities why he called, he stated that he just wanted to hear her voice and that he was “lost in love”.
He was indicted with two counts of telecommunications harassment, which was pled down to one count of telecommunications harassment.
The Judge was not amused by the love-lost man, sentencing him to 11 MONTHS IN PRISON and a $250 fine….for these two phone calls (2 minutes and 1 minute).