Stalking

A defense attorney was convicted this week of stalking a former girlfriend and faces up to four years in prison. David Scharf, 46, was found guilty of a felony count of stalking and misdemeanor counts of sending harassing e-mails and violating a restraining order. Scharf, a Corona del Mar resident, met the woman online in 2004, and she broke off the relationship four months later. Prosecutors said he continued to pursue her, sending harassing and threatening e-mails, which violated a restraining order not to contact her. He will be sentenced June 13. -- H.G. Reza

A woman who showed up Sunday outside John Cusack's Malibu home -- despite a restraining order barring her from approaching the actor -- was arrested on suspicion of stalking, Los Angeles County sheriff's officials said Monday. Deputies were called to the 24000 block of Malibu Road about 7 p.m. Sunday after a cab driver reported that a passenger was refusing to pay a fare for a ride to that area.

A Michigan man is facing a stalking charge after he showed up at the door of a Thousand Oaks woman he had been sending unwanted messages to for more than a year on the social website MySpace, Ventura County authorities said. George Costales, 39, was arrested Wednesday and is being held in the main Ventura County Jail in lieu of $500,000 bail, officials said. He faces a single count of felony stalking.

A dental assistant obsessed with actress Sandra Bullock repeatedly tried to run over the actress' husband, motorcycle mogul Jesse James, at the couple's Sunset Beach home Sunday morning, authorities said. Bullock, along with James' 10-year-old child, witnessed Marcia D. Valentine of Huntington Beach driving back and forth "three or four times" trying to hit James with her silver Mercedes, narrowly missing him, said Orange County sheriff's spokesman Jim Amormino.

A priest has been arrested on charges of stalking late-night talk show host Conan O'Brien by writing him threatening notes on parish letterhead, contacting his parents and showing up at his studio, New York prosecutors said. The Rev. David Ajemian, a priest in the Archdiocese of Boston, was arrested last week while trying to enter a taping session of NBC's "Late Night With Conan O'Brien" at New York's Rockefeller Plaza, said Barbara Thompson, a spokeswoman for the Manhattan prosecutor's office.

A priest accused of stalking Conan O'Brien was found fit to stand trial Friday. The judge issued the ruling after a court-appointed psychologist examined the Rev. David Ajemian of the Archdiocese of Boston. State Justice Abraham Clott also ordered him held on $2,500 cash bail. Ajemian's attorney, Eric Seiff, agreed the priest was fit for trial. But Seiff said Ajemian had been taking medication and has been treated for a year for psychological problems.

Robert Ray, a former independent counsel who investigated President Clinton's affair with Monica Lewinsky, turned himself in to police on charges of stalking a former girlfriend, according to the Manhattan district attorney's office. New York police say Ray's former girlfriend, a 40-year-old Manhattan woman, filed a complaint that he persisted in sending e-mail and knocking on her door months after she broke off their relationship.

Santa Monica police and FBI agents raided the homes of several controversial animal rights activists this week as part of an investigation into the underground Animal Liberation Front. Among the targets were Dr. Jerry Vlasak and his wife, Pamelyn Ferdin, two well-known activists who regularly protest against Los Angeles animal services officials. They were not at their Agoura Hills home when police conducted the search. Vlasak said an officer had to enter through a pet door to get inside.

A Russian national who allegedly came to Los Angeles for the sole purpose of having a romantic relationship with "tween queen" Hilary Duff has been arrested on suspicion of menacing the actress, authorities said. Manhattan Beach police officials confirmed Monday that Maksim Myaskovskiy, 18, was arrested Friday on suspicion of felony stalking and making criminal threats against the actress-singer, best known as the star of the long-running Disney Channel show "Lizzie McGuire."

A community college geography instructor, who flooded TV weatherman Fritz Coleman with e-mails and rambling letters expressing her romantic interest in him and saying that God was talking to her, has pleaded guilty to violating a restraining order that prohibited her from communicating with the KNBC personality. Melanie Renfrew, who teaches at Harbor College in Wilmington, could face six months in jail and a $1,000 fine. However, if she has no contact with Coleman or NBC employees, the case will be dismissed in a year, Burbank Assistant City Atty.