Followed... A Glitch in Michigan‘s Stalking Law is Bad News for Women Drivers Terrorized by a Late-night Motorist

For a number of women driving alone late at night on the lonely empty highways of Northern Michigan, an encounter with an erratic male driver was a terrifying experience.
Although no woman is known to have been forced off the road or assaulted, in a number of cases the pursuer flashed his lights behind female drivers, drove alongside making gestures for them to pull over, or sped ahead and slammed on his brakes in front of their vehicles.
“This was a case where you’d have a lone female driving down M-72 when it was a deserted highway at 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning,” said Captain David Meachum who oversees the Detective Bureau of the Grand Traverse County Sheriff’s Department. “He was coming up behind them, flashing his headlights on and off -- you see that in road rage cases sometimes.”
On at least one occasion, the motorist sped on over a hill ahead of a woman driver and pulled off the road, getting out of his car in an attempt to flag her down.
“He followed a couple of women to a convenience store or home and had conversations with them,” Capt. Meachum said. “He’d try to talk with them and they’d say they wanted nothing to do with him. Then he’d leave.”
In another incident, a woman reported that the driver had exposed himself by the light of his headlights, standing alongside the road.
“Several of the women were definitely affected and fearful,” Capt. Meachum said.

MINOR SENTENCES
The suspect in the case is Josè Vega, 28, of Mancelona, who was arrested Oct. 28 in Antrim County.
Vega was arraigned on Nov. 15 in the 86th District Court of Judge Thomas Phillips on five misdemeanors, including one for indecent exposure, as well as two charges of disturbing the peace and reckless driving. He faces a pre-trial hearing this week.
County Prosecutor Dennis LaBelle said that Vega is married and apparently has no criminal record.
If Vega is convicted, he could serve 90 days for each misdemeanor charge, and up to a year for indecent exposure. If three charges stick, he could be registered on the State’s data base as a sex offender.
But considering how temporary those jail terms are, what can be done to keep a suspected stalker off the streets for the long run?
“The answer is, right now, nothing for what we have to charge him with,” LaBelle said. “Michigan’s Stalking Law requires that the same victim be approached twice in order to put him away for any length of time. This was essentially stalking, but the way the statutes are written, it requires that two or more cases be reported by the same victim.”

STALKING LAW
Michigan’s Stalking Law went into effect in January 1993 as part of a nationwide reaction to domestic violence, said Jo Bullis, program director at the Women’s Resource Center in Traverse City.
The law has two provisions:
• A charge of stalking is a misdemeanor with a penalty of up to one year in prison and a $1,000 fine.
• Aggravated stalking, which involves a physical threat, a second offense, or violation of a personal protection order, carries a five-year prison term and a $10,000 fine.
Additionally, if the victim is under the age of 18 and the offender is more than five years older, an aggravated stalking charge provides a felony penalty of up to 10 years in prison and a $15,000 fine.
Stalking in Michigan is defined as: “a willful course of conduct involving repeated or continuing harassment of another individual that would cause a reasonable person to feel terrorized, frightened, intimidated, threatened, harassed, or molested, and that actually causes the victim to feel terrorized, frightened, intimidated, threatened, harassed, or molested.”
That definition would seem to fit the women terrorized on the highway late at night, but Bullis agrees with LaBelle that the court’s hands are tied in this case regarding the details of the Stalking Law.
“Basically the law says that the stalking has to be a course of conduct directed at one person and not multiple persons,” says Bullis, a former assistant prosecutor from Northern Dakota whose specialty is domestic violence law.
Most stalking cases occur as the result of the break-up of a relationship, Bullis said. The classic case is that of an angry ex-husband stalking his former wife, or a rebuffed boyfriend cruising a woman’s house.
“Unfortunately, there aren’t a lot of other laws that carry a terribly severe penalty for a case like this,” Bullis said of the highway incidents. “This might be a situation where the Legislature needs to look at some new legislation that applies to this kind of situation.”

COMING FORWARD
Vega was arrested after local law enforcement received numerous tips which lead to the suspect.
“We put this out to the media and that generated a lot of tips,” Meachum said. “People recognized a description or mannerisms or the vehicle. We got quite a few, and because of the tips, we got more victims.”
In fact, more than 10 area women came forward during the investigation, especially after word got out that police were looking for a predatory driver.
“Our victims’ time range dated all the way back to August 16,” Meachum said, adding that it’s possible that even more victims will come forward during the course of the trial.
Women were followed on 31-South near Chum’s Corners in Traverse City and near a Kalkaska bar, and on two occasions by a truck on M-72 near Kalkaska and Acme. In two incidents occurring in mid-October, the women were driving home during the early morning hours from night shift positions at Munson Medical Center.

HOW DANGEROUS?
In a published report, Vega allegedly told detectives that he was trying to meet women “socially.”
Is he considered dangerous?
“We have no idea -- absolutely none. We have no idea of what he had in mind,” said LaBelle, adding that none of the known victims were assaulted.
Meachum noted that in his 17 years with the sheriff’s department, he’s never encountered any case where a motorist ran a woman off the road and raped her, although such an incident did happen in Leelanau County more than a decade ago.
He added, however, that due to the alarming nature of the incidents, law enforcement officers in the area were motivated to make an arrest as soon as possible. “Even though the charges were minor, this had the potential to be really serious.”


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