Man Sentenced to 3 Years Under ‘Stalking’ Law

A former Torrance aerospace engineer who made hundreds of phone calls and sent nearly two dozen threatening letters to a co-worker who refused to date him was sentenced Thursday to three years in state prison.

Lanny Brent Curry, 37, was only the second person to be prosecuted under California’s new “stalking” law, which took effect a year ago. He pleaded guilty in October to the felony charge.

Torrance Superior Court Judge Francis J. Hourigan, noting that several years of cocaine and amphetamine use had “twisted (Curry’s) mind,” sentenced Curry to the maximum term allowed. But Hourigan ordered that Curry serve the time at Vacaville State Prison, where psychiatrists would be available to treat him.

Curry’s attorney, Michael Russo, had asked Hourigan to sentence Curry to no more than a year in prison so that he could begin private psychiatric treatment as soon as possible.

“I admit to the court that this case is very bizarre,” Russo said. “My client is an intelligent, articulate, college educated man. . . . It seems such a waste at this point not to do something to turn him around.”

Curry was arrested last fall after he repeatedly violated a restraining order intended to stop his four-month litany of threats against Allied-Signal engineer Nancy Girten.

Girten told officials that Curry was no more than a passing acquaintance, whose name she did not know, when he first approached her in Allied-Signal’s employee parking lot.

“(Curry) stated to me that ‘the Lord has told me to surrender myself to you,’ and that he wanted to talk with me about his problems,” Girten said in a written statement to the court.

When she refused to talk to him, Curry began calling her at work and at home. Within weeks, his letters became threatening, warning in obscenity-laced language that if she did not see him, “I will shove you in the ground. That’s a promise.”

Even after his arrest Oct. 15, Curry managed to continue sending threatening letters to Girten’s office, Deputy Dist. Atty. Diana Teran said.

“Neither restraining orders nor any court orders will stop the defendant from completing his mission, which is to get to the victim,” Teran told Hourigan. “He poses a significant danger to the victim. . . . We need to keep the victim safe for as long as possible.”