Rejected Suitor Gets 3 Years for Stalking Ex-Girlfriend

A Burbank man who stalked and threatened to kill his ex-girlfriend for spurning his marriage proposal was sentenced Tuesday to three years in prison, officials said.

William Ketchoyian, 41, dated the 37-year-old North Hollywood woman for three months before she broke up with him in February, said Deputy City Atty. Maureen Rodriguez. Even after she obtained an emergency protective order, he slashed her furniture and the tires on her car, cut her telephone lines and threatened to kill her, Rodriquez said.

A jury convicted Ketchoyian last week of 17 criminal counts, including nine of violating the protective order, three counts of vandalism and one count of threatening to kill, prosecutors said.

“The word that was used in court was that he was ‘obsessed.’ He terrorized this woman,” Rodriquez said.

Superior Court Judge Elizabeth Lippett also sentenced Ketchoyian to three years’ probation. She ordered him to pay the victim for the vandalism damages and to attend a yearlong class on preventing domestic violence.

Ketchoyian, who is on probation from a 1999 felony conviction for transporting marijuana for sale, was immediately taken into custody.