Alleged Phone Harasser Arrested While Trying to Pay $18,000 Bill

A man wanted in Denver for allegedly making several thousand harassing telephone calls was arrested after going to an Irvine cellular telephone company office this week to pay his $18,000 bill, police said Friday.

Among David George Neuman’s alleged victims are a Denver city councilwoman, a police detective, and the Denver Gay and Lesbian Community Center’s suicide hot line, which was forced to temporarily shut down because of the flood of calls, said Denver Police Detective John Leitz.

“He has been making these kinds of telephone calls for at least 10 years and has been arrested seven times in the past,” Leitz said. “He has a large amount of money available to him, and he calls whoever upsets him. It could be anyone from the person who cleaned his motor home to his lawyer.”

Neuman, 51, who lived in Denver in a motor home with nine dogs, apparently owned as many as 12 cellular telephones which police said he used to make the harassing calls.

He was first arrested in Burbank on Aug. 18 for a series of calls made in Denver over a span of two years. He was extradited to Colorado but had eluded police after being mistakenly set free from a county jail in Denver, Leitz said.

Irvine Police Lt. Bob Lennert said his agency was informed on Tuesday by Denver police that Neuman was expected to be at the cellular telephone office at 3333 Michelson Drive. Company employees alerted police when he arrived and he was arrested without incident, Lennert said.

Neuman was due to be transported from Orange County Jail to Denver on Friday. Since the telephone calls are misdemeanor crimes, he will not serve jail time, Leitz said.

“We want to route him into our psychiatric unit and get him away from all the telephones that we can,” Leitz said. “He can be held for 72 hours, then can be referred to a private psychiatric facility for up to 15 days.”

Although Neuman was wanted on misdemeanor charges, Leitz said Denver police took the unprecedented step of entering his name on a federal computer to alert other police departments in an effort to extradite him to Colorado.

“As far as I know, this is the only time in our history that Denver police have made a misdemeanor extradition,” Leitz. “It’s costing us a fortune to bring him back, but we don’t have a choice. Who knows how many lives he is endangering with these calls?”

Leitz said police have contacted cellular telephone companies across the country and asked that they not provide service to Neuman.