A man who called his former fiancee 600 times and sent her 450 text messages was convicted of stalking and sentenced to six years in prison, the Cobb County District Attorney said.
Austin Luis Joseph, 33, of Oklahoma, was engaged to the woman for 10 years before the couple broke up in the summer of 2011, according to investigators. That August, the woman was granted a protective order against Joseph.
But that fall, Joseph placed more than 600 calls and sent 450 text messages to the woman from various numbers that were later linked to a phone owned by his brother, DA Vic Reynolds’ office said.
“The text messages showed the cycle of abuse the defendant would put the victim through,” Lindsay Gardner, assistant district attorney, said in an emailed statement. “In one text message he would call her by her nicknames and say how much he loved her and wanted to see (their) children. In the next message he would curse at her for not picking up his phone calls.”
Joseph was arrested in January 2012 and charged with aggravated stalking, according to his arrest warrant. His trial began Monday, and on Thursday, a jury deliberated for 20 minutes before convicting Joseph.
“One phone call was too many, let alone hundreds and hundreds of them,” Gardner said. “The jury clearly agreed: Enough is enough.”
Cobb Superior Court Judge A. Gregory Poole sentenced Joseph to 10 years, with six years to serve in prison and the rest on probation.
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