GETTING ANSWERS : A Stalker’s Victim, Denied Peace of Mind by a Plea Bargain

California’s anti-stalking laws are among the strongest in the nation, but a law is only as good as its enforcement. SHERRY MEINBERG, an educator and victims’ rights activist, believed after the last terrifying incident with her ex-husband that he’d go to jail for a very long time. She was wrong. She told her story to JILL STEWART, who sought responses from the agencies responsible for enforcement and incarceration.

When the phone calls started up again in 1993, it had been years since I’d thought about my mentally disturbed ex-husband, Charles Fred Gray, who after our divorce in 1965 went to prison for 12 years for the brutal rape of another woman. Ugly memories had faded--of the way Chuck stalked me in the 1960s when I drove home from my teaching job, and the many times I trembled in the Lakewood sheriff’s station parking lot, waiting for him to leave. The police declined to intervene, calling it a “domestic problem.”

It also brought back memories of the nightmarish day that Chuck abducted me and headed for Mexico. I escaped when he stopped at train tracks in Laguna. I can’t recall the name of my savior, a trucker who saw Chuck tackle me and then lose his grip on my ankles. The trucker opened his door, called to me and I jumped inside.

Once, Chuck tried to run me down with his car and I fled through back yards, into the homes of strangers in my quiet neighborhood in Long Beach. Another day, Chuck told my brother he had killed me and that my brother and parents were next. Always, my family’s horror was seen by authorities as a “family squabble” and the police refused to do anything.

So it was a dreadful day two years ago when I got the first of Chuck’s phone calls, in the dead of night. He was long-paroled from Atascadero State Prison and claimed first to be in Las Vegas, then North Carolina. Somehow, 30 years had not dulled his obsession. Then I made an even more troubling discovery: Chuck was actually living near me in Long Beach.

I went to Long Beach police with a bag full of Chuck’s creepy cards, letters and “gifts.” My present husband of 24 years discovered that the flower beds beneath our windows were trampled at night. Frightened neighbors spotted Chuck at odd hours. Both my husband and I were followed. Still, the police refused to take a complaint, a reminder that not much had changed despite a new anti-stalking law.

Then I saw Chuck myself, on my street. I cannot describe my anger and fear. Experts say stalkers imagine a “special destiny” with their victim. Chuck had written me about our destiny (“an experience you’ve never had before and will never have again”), naming a specific date in May, 1994 and place, a public park. Finally, a civilian police employee begrudgingly allowed me to file a complaint while another cracked jokes about it. A woman prosecutor I know urged me to make an official complaint about every incident, to create a paper trail against Chuck. This advice saved my life.

Last May, Chuck was caught by police on my block with a loaded gun. When the officers learned that I had lodged formal complaints, it made a crucial difference: They could arrest Chuck without his actually attacking me. One officer said he would “never see the light of day again.”

Detective Robbie Hill-Morrison built a terrific case. Deputy Dist. Atty. Kevin Greber charged Chuck with stalking and being an ex-convict with a gun. But then everything seemed to unravel, and I learned that justice is fragile. Chuck faced up to 10 years in prison if found guilty. But Greber offered Chuck a plea bargain of four years, which Chuck jumped at. I was devastated to learn that this brief time would be shaved by the Department of Corrections for “good time” served. Outrageously, Chuck will be freed in early 1997, or earlier. It has taken me dozens of letters and calls just to find out that date. Now I am told I will not even be allowed to plead before a parole board.

My question, to the police who long ignored me, the district attorney who gave Chuck a break and the state that continues to reduce his time, is: Why?

I have written 63 letters to the governor, the prisons, Long Beach politicians, various prosecutors, victim’s groups and U.S. senators. One “victims’ support group” had no answers but invited me to a party!

I am retired from teaching, but an activist against stalkers. I appear on cable shows and speak to any interested group. I urge anyone being stalked to formally report every incident to police. But still I ask, why?

Official Responses

ROBBIE HILL-MORRISON

Long Beach police detective

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It sounds strange, but Sherry is the perfect victim. She assisted tremendously in our investigation and is a now a squeaky wheel asking why. She’s saying: Don’t let me die before we change the law. Stalkers shouldn’t get plea bargains and good time. I applaud her.

KEVIN GREBER

Deputy dist. atty., Long Beach

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If there had been a trial and he had been found guilty, a judge probably would have given Gray seven or eight years, but he’d still get good time off. There’s always the risk that a jury would not convict. I sympathize with her fears. But the fact that he was out of Atascadero for years before threatening her would be viewed very much in his favor. I feel we got a good resolution.

CHRISTINE MAY

Spokeswoman, state Department of Corrections

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Because Gray now has “two strikes,” he cannot get 50% time off. He will get one day off for every five of good time. Only convicts facing life in prison go before a parole board. He will simply be released. However, our victims’ services office will notify Mrs. Meinberg when Gray is about to be released. Also, if he “acts out” in prison and psychiatrists judge him to be dangerous, he can be forced to do his probation at Atascadero. And if he contacts his ex-wife, he goes back to prison. We’d really like to do more. And if the laws change, we will.