LANCASTER, Pa. — A Lebanon County man has been sentenced to state prison after pleading guilty last week to stalking and harassing a woman for several years, the Lancaster County District Attorney's Office said Wednesday.
Brian Mahoney, 66, submitted an open guilty plea last week to seven offenses, including stalking and terroristic threats, prosecutors said. Judge Dennis Reinaker sentenced him to two years and eight months to nine years and eight months incarceration.
Prosecutors argued that Mahoney’s actions warranted a state prison sentence.
“This really did change the victim’s life,” said Assistant District Attorney Jennifer Ponessa, who prosecuted the case.
In addition to stalking the woman at her workplace, Mahoney also contacted her family on social media and left voicemail messages to a police officer involved in a previous case involving him and the victim, prosecutors said.
Ponessa played the voicemails in court where Mahoney threatened to “blow their heads off,” referring to the victim and the police officer.
The messages “made everyone afraid of what he was going to do,” Ponessa said.
In an impact statement read to the court, the victim stated that her life “has been consumed by fear and anxiety” of Mahoney’s “dark intentions” since he began stalking her.
“The overwhelming knowledge that someone was watching me, showing up unannounced and invading my privacy has left me emotionally shattered,” the victim told the court in the impact statement.
In asking for a state sentence, Ponessa told the court that the community at large needs to be protected from Mahoney’s “sick and twisted” methods of intimidation. She further stressed that a strong sentence would prevent someone else from being Mahoney’s next victim.
Mahoney, 66, told the court his actions were due to having insufficient medications for his bipolar disorder and that the stalking was “out of character” for him – a claim Judge Reinaker quickly disputed.
Reinaker said the fact that Mahoney’s behavior continued for so long was “mystifying.”
Mahoney, of North Londonderry Township, began stalking the victim in October 2019, according to prosecutors.
The two were complete strangers to each other, prosecutors said. Mahoney was a customer at the bank where the victim worked.
But Mahoney became “obsessed” with the victim, Ponessa told the court, constantly showing up at the woman’s place of work and staring at her from across the street as well as calling and emailing her.
The woman lived in such fear of Mahoney that she was unable to leave her workplace without an escort, according to prosecutors.
The impact of the stalking caused the victim to uproot her life and change jobs, abandoning her career, but Mahoney somehow found her new place of employment and began stalking her there as well.
Mahoney also showed up at the workplace of one of the victim’s family members, prosecutors said.
