Ex-Police Officer Found Guilty of Stalking Raines

A former Los Angeles police officer who threatened to “take care” of a TV weatherman’s wife in order to marry him and have his baby has been convicted of misdemeanor stalking in Glendale Municipal Court.

Martha Cane, 41, faces up to one year in County Jail and a $1,000 fine for stalking KABC weatherman Dallas Raines. The jury deliberated only 30 minutes before returning a guilty verdict last Friday. Cane’s sentencing has been set for March 18.

Prosecutors said Cane stalked Raines and his wife, Daniella, for almost a year, often showing up at the Hollywood TV studios of KABC where Raines worked and loitering around the couple’s La Crescenta home.

Raines couldn’t be reached for comment this week. But the TV weatherman said in an interview last month that he asked authorities to file charges because he feared that Cane, who served on the LAPD from 1983 to 1986, knew how to use firearms and posed a serious danger to his family’s safety.

LAPD officials refused to comment on Cane’s employment. But Larry McGrail, a deputy district attorney in Glendale, said that Cane worked undercover narcotics for part of her tenure as a police officer and left the force voluntarily in 1986.

Cane was arrested Jan. 23 when she refused to leave the Raines’ residence and made threatening comments. According to the police report, Cane told the deputies who arrested her that Daniella Raines was an “evil woman” who would have to be dealt with because she stood in the way of Cane’s marriage to Raines.

At the time of her arrest, Cane lived in a homeless shelter and had no car. Investigators said Cane rode her red mountain bike across town as she stalked Raines in his La Crescenta home and the Hollywood TV studio.

Cane also wrote up to two letters a week to Raines in which she laid out her attraction to him. Investigators said Cane believed that KABC News anchor Harold Greene notified her in “code” during newscasts that she would marry Raines and have his baby after she completed three marathon races.

After her arrest, authorities found photos of Cane crossing the finish line of a 1992 marathon race. Cane did not testify during the trial but a psychiatrist who examined her at Olive View Medical Center concluded that Cane posed a severe danger to Raines and his family.

Raines said the psychiatrist called him at home about midnight the night of the arrest and warned him that Cane had made threatening statements against his family.