VAN NUYS : Convicted Stalker Gets 2 Years for Repeat Offense
The first person charged under the state’s new felony “stalking” law was sent to prison for two years Wednesday by a Van Nuys judge who ruled that the man took advantage of the court’s earlier leniency by once again shadowing his ex-girlfriend.
Mark D. Bleakley, 30, went looking for his former girlfriend in February after he was released briefly from the locked drug- and mental health-rehabilitation clinic where he had been enrolled, said Superior Court Judge Judith M. Ashmann.
In a case that was featured on ABC’s “20/20” and several national talk shows, Ashmann in October placed Bleakley on five years’ probation and ordered him to attend the clinic for six months after he pleaded no contest to violating the stalking law.
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