California IN BRIEF : VENTURA : Man Pleads Guilty to Terrorist Calls

A Lakewood man suspected of placing threatening calls to more than 500 Southern California women has pleaded guilty in Ventura Superior Court to nine charges of making terrorist phone calls. Steven Imler, 37, former telemarketing manager for a Compton company, was dubbed the Alphabet Caller because he followed the alphabetical listings of phone directories in choosing his targets, investigators said. After selecting women whose first names were listed along with their husband’s, Imler would call and say that he had the husbands tied up at gunpoint and would order the women to perform various sexual acts. More than 500 women in Ventura, Los Angeles, Orange and San Bernardino counties received such calls during an 18-month period, officials said. Authorities traced the calls to Florence Filter Corp. Imler turned himself in after Florence, his employer, confronted him about the calls in April, investigators said. Sentencing is set for Sept. 6.