Valley Center
Robert Lee Bell of Valley Center was found guilty Tuesday in San Diego Municipal Court of 14 misdemeanor counts of making threatening or annoying phone calls to a sheriff’s deputy and a psychologist.
The psychologist told authorities that Bell had vowed to make the San Ysidro massacre look like “a walk through a rose garden.”
The jury acquitted Bell on two other counts. He faces a maximum penalty of seven years in jail and a $7,000 fine. Bell could receive additional jail time for violating an earlier probation, according to Deputy Dist. Atty. James Atkins.
Atkins said evidence in the trial showed Bell made 11 phone calls to the home of Deputy Sheriff Jon Christiansen, hanging up without saying anything each time. Three calls to Escondido psychologist Lee McGough were recorded on McGough’s answering machine, Atkins said.
Bell, a gun collector, was arrested in 1984 after McGough told sheriff’s deputies that he was preparing for a shoot-out with police. He was released on the condition that he undergo therapy, but was arrested again in July on the phone call charges.
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