Los Angeles Daily News
Jan 14 2005
Trial ordered in stalking by use of GPS
Ex-boyfriend, 32, charged
By Naush Boghossian, Staff Writer
BURBANK — A 32-year-old man was ordered on Thursday to stand trial
on charges that he used a high-tech tracking device to stalk his
ex-girlfriend, the first case of its kind in Los Angeles County.
Following a daylong preliminary hearing, Ara Gabrielyan, who managed
a video store, was ordered tried on charges of stalking and making
criminal threats. He is accused of attaching a cell phone equipped
with Global Positioning System technology to the car of Gayane
Indzheyan, 35, and using it to keep track of her whereabouts.
Indzheyan testified during the hearing that Gabrielyan refused to
accept that she was ending their two-year relationship, and would
call her as many as 100 times a day.
“He said, ‘It’s going to be me or no one else in your life for the
rest of your life,”‘ she said.
“This was a relationship I wanted to be out of. I was dealing with
someone who was capable of doing anything … someone who’s pretty
dangerous,” she said. “I was dealing with it so it would end one day
and it would not end tragically for me or him.”
The Glendale businesswoman also testified that Gabrielyan was
violent, breaking her car windshield with his fist and crashing into
her parked car at work.
She said she became suspicious he was following her when he began to
show up at unexpected places, including Los Angeles International
Airport and even her brother’s grave site.
“I started thinking, How come he knows where I was all the time?” she
said.
Before she tried to end the relationship, Indzheyan said, she put up
her house and $20,000 in cash to bail him out of jail after he was
arrested in January 2004 on charges of credit card fraud.
Gabrielyan’s attorney argued that Indzheyan never really ended the
relationship and continued to call and have sex with him in order to
ensure that he would appear in court and she wouldn’t lose her
property.
“She used a fragile man as a puppet. Rather than ending the
relationship, she used herself as bait,” said defense attorney Andrew
Flier.
Outside court, Flier said he hopes to resolve the case before it goes
to trial later this month, with Gabrielyan being deported to Armenia,
where his family lives.
Prosecutors maintain that Gabrielyan was extremely manipulative,
making Indzheyan stay with him and comply with his desires.
“It wasn’t that she was stringing him along. She didn’t need to,”
prosecutor Keri Modder said. “He’s obsessed with her and wouldn’t
leave her alone. It’s a classic case of stalking.”