Man Admits to Making Threatening Phone Calls : Courts: A former telemarketing manager who deceived women into performing sex acts pleads guilty to nine charges.

A Los Angeles County man suspected of placing threatening calls to more than 500 Southern California women pleaded guilty Monday in Ventura to nine charges of making terrorist phone calls.

Steven Imler, 37, former telemarketing manager for a Compton company, was dubbed the Alphabet Caller because he followed the alphabetical listings of phone directories in choosing his targets, investigators said.

After selecting women whose first names were listed along with their husbands, Imler would call and say that he had the husbands tied up at gunpoint and would order the women to perform various sexual acts.

More than 500 women in Ventura, Los Angeles, Orange and San Bernardino counties received such calls during an 18-month period, Ventura County officials said.

Ventura and Los Angeles county sheriff’s investigators said they traced the calls to his company, Florence Filter Corp. Imler turned himself in after his employer confronted him about the calls in April, investigators said.

In a tape-recording of one of the calls, played in Ventura County Superior Court Monday, Imler was heard asking an obviously distraught woman to perform various sex acts and describe them. Breathing heavily, he also asked the woman to describe her sex life.

At several points in the tape, the woman pleaded for information about her husband. In the background, a child’s voice was heard yelling: “Mommy, mommy.”

As the five-minute tape was played, Imler sat at the defense table, his head buried in his hands. His attorney, Richard M. Moore of Los Angeles, said Imler is married and has children. But no one accompanied him to the hearing. A Lakewood resident, he remains free on $5,000 bail.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Patrice Koenig said Imler was prosecuted in Ventura County Superior Court because more than 300 calls were placed to women in Ventura County.

After Imler pleaded guilty to the terrorist-call charges, Judge Frederick A. Jones held a brief non-jury trial on an additional charge of child molestation. After receiving police reports and other evidence, Jones said he would announce his verdict in the next few days.

Koenig said the molestation charge stems from a call Imler made last Nov. 19 to a 12-year-old boy, who allegedly was told that his father would be hurt unless the boy performed sex acts. “If you make the child do it, it’s the same as if you do it,” Koenig said.

But Moore argued that the law does not allow a molestation charge under such circumstances.

If Imler is convicted of child molestation as well as the terrorist phone calls, he could receive up to 10 years in prison, Koenig said. The maximum for the phone calls alone is six years, she said. Jones scheduled sentencing for Sept. 6.

Moore said Imler is remorseful and is undergoing psychiatric counseling. “He is not suffering from an incurable disease,” the attorney said. “He can be cured.”