COUNTYWIDE : Man Charged With Phone-Call Threats

A Lakewood man dubbed the Alphabet Caller by Ventura County authorities for allegedly making threatening phone calls to hundreds of area women was charged Tuesday with 16 counts of making terrorist threats and two counts of making annoying phone calls.

Steven Imler, 37, a telemarketing manager at a Compton filter company, pleaded not guilty to the charges in Ventura County Municipal Court, Deputy Dist. Atty. Patrice Koenig said, although he admitted at the time of his arrest that he made the calls.

Imler’s preliminary hearing is scheduled for May 14.

The investigation into the phone calls spanned 18 months and four counties before officials from the Ventura County and Los Angeles County sheriff’s departments came close to arresting Imler after tracing some of his phone calls. He turned himself in after his employer, who had been cooperating with authorities, confronted him about the calls. He told authorities that he made the calls because of job-related stress, deputies said.

Sheriff’s officials said Imler made more than 500 threatening phone calls from his office at Florence Filter Corp. to women in Ventura, Los Angeles, Orange and San Bernardino counties. About 300 of the calls were to women in Ventura County, authorities said.

Authorities said he would select the names of married couples from the phone book at random, choosing women whose first names were listed with their husbands’.

Sheriff’s officials said he would tell each woman that he had her husband bound and gagged and was holding a gun to his head.

Sheriff’s officials said he would then demand that the woman describe herself and perform sexual acts upon themselves.