Man Gets 3 Years for Stalking Woman

A Burbank man who stalked his ex-girlfriend and threatened to kill her after she spurned his marriage proposal was sentenced Tuesday to three years in jail, city prosecutors said.

William Ketchoyian, 41, dated the 37-year-old North Hollywood woman for just three months before she broke up with him in February, said Deputy City Atty. Maureen Rodriguez. He then threatened to wreck the woman’s apartment, and after police helped her obtain an emergency protective order, Ketchoyian slashed her furniture and the tires on her car, cut her telephone lines and threatened to kill her.

A jury convicted Ketchoyian last week of 17 criminal counts after a nine-day trial in Van Nuys Superior Court. The charges included nine counts of violating a domestic violence protective order, three counts of vandalism, two counts of making threatening phone calls, and one count each of threatening to kill and domestic battery, prosecutors said.

“The jury only deliberated for two hours and found him guilty on all 17 counts,” Rodriguez said. “The word that was used in court was that he was ‘obsessed.’ He terrorized this woman.”

Superior Court Judge Elizabeth Lippett also sentenced Ketchoyian to three years probation. She ordered him to pay the victim for the vandalism damages and attend a yearlong class on preventing domestic violence.

Ketchoyian, who is on probation from a 1999 felony conviction for transporting marijuana for sale, was immediately taken into custody.