Obscene Phone Caller Gets 5-Year Term in State Prison

A 27-year-old man accused of making hundreds of obscene phone calls to women in Orange County has been sentenced to five years in state prison after pleading guilty to 14 felony counts.

Police investigators say Joseph Rocha Valenzuela of Santa Ana made hundreds of calls to businesses such as preschools where women were likely to answer the phone, and then threatened to detonate a bomb if the women did not answer his questions.

“It’s amazing how just a phone call can make you feel so awful, so terrified and scared,” said one preschool employee at a local church who asked not to be identified. The church evacuated its preschool numerous times because of the bomb threats.

Santa Ana Police Detective Linda Faust, who investigated the case, said Valenzuela made at least 300 calls.

However, Valenzuela was charged with only 14 counts of making a false bomb threat because “after so many counts, you don’t get any more time” in prison, explained Deputy Dist. Atty. Clyde Von Der Ahe. The maximum amount Superior Court Judge Kathleen E. O’Leary could have given Valenzuela during sentencing Tuesday was eight years, he said.

Von Der Ahe added that Valenzuela would be eligible for parole in 2 1/2 to three years.

Valenzuela was on parole for a 1986 robbery conviction when he made the phone calls, according to court records. He was also convicted of attempted robbery in 1985, records show.

Valenzuela has a history of arrests for attempted rape, assault with a deadly weapon, grand theft and burglary, Faust said in court documents.

He was released on parole for the robbery conviction on April 2, 1990. The first reported bomb threat was made May 21, 1990. The 14 counts Valenzuela pleaded guilty to occurred between Dec. 13, 1990, and Feb. 28.

“Due to the conflict in the Persian Gulf and the subsequent war, the victims felt they were being subjected to terrorist threats,” Faust wrote in her report. Some of the victims mistook Valenzuela’s slight Latino accent for an Arab one, she added.

“As an example of the panic these calls evoked, upon receipt of their first bomb threat from the suspect, Temple Beth Sholom evacuated the entire preschool and temple offices and drove everybody to one of the (Santa Ana) police substations for sanctuary,” Faust wrote.

Police said Valenzuela would telephone businesses where women generally answered the phone and say that he had placed a bomb in the building. He would then threaten to detonate the bomb by remote control unless the woman answered his questions, usually of an obscene nature, police said.

At first, he targeted churches and preschools, then branched out to include hospitals, banks and shopping centers, according to Faust.

Eventually, employees at First Assembly of God Church in Santa Ana were able to make a tape recording of one of the bomb threats.

After authorities traced some of the calls to Valenzuela’s house, three members of his family and three parole officers who knew him identified the voice on the church tape as his.