FORT WORTH -- A former state trooper was convicted Wednesday of stalking his ex-wife in a barrage of hate that included threats, spray-painting her vehicles with insults and sending strange men to her house for sex through a fake profile he created in her name on an adult dating website.
A jury in state District Judge Sharen Wilson's court deliberated two hours before finding Kevin Safford, 41, of Fort Worth, guilty on two counts of stalking and one count of online impersonation. He faces up to 10 years in prison on each count.His ex-wife, Lawana Safford Siney, told jurors the "terrifying" ordeals began in 2009 after she and Safford were divorced. They started as text messages and e-mails and escalated into telephone threats made through her mother and aunt.Then, on Oct. 26, 2009, men started calling her work and showing up at her home expecting sex they believed she had promised them through chat rooms on an online website.Prosecutors Steven Gebhardt and Andrea Townsend acknowledged that evidence against Safford was circumstantial, but urged jurors during closing arguments to put the pieces together to find Safford guilty."If you use your common sense ... it leads you one direction," Gebhardt told jurors. "It's now time for him to pay for it."Defense attorneys Harold Johnson and Liz Cortright told jurors that the evidence did not link Safford to the crimes, and they suggested during questioning that a former boyfriend of Siney's was behind the hate campaign. Siney said she began dating the other man after divorcing Safford and initially suspected him before becoming convinced that Safford was the culprit.Saginaw police testified they ruled out the boyfriend and others before settling on Safford.Johnson told jurors that Siney's family disliked Safford and "embellished" the evidence."There was a lot of falsehood here," Johnson said. "Kevin Safford is not guilty of any of these offenses."Siney's aunt and mother testified about receiving threatening phone calls, and identified the voice on the other end of the line as Safford.He was also linked to hundreds of anonymous phone calls placed to the Saginaw police department, urging officers to respond to emergencies at Siney's home and at his own. He reported that his vehicle was set on fire, but police concluded he might have set the fire.An analysis of Safford's computer found evidence that he had visited the adult dating website several times and had the photo of Siney in his computer that was used to create the fake profile. His computer files indicated the photo was deleted the day before men began showing up at Siney's home." Creepy's the word that comes to mind," Townsend told jurors.The punishment phase began briefly Wednesday afternoon, with prosecutors indicating they would not present additional evidence against Safford. The defense is expected to present character witnesses and others beginning today in Criminal District Court No. 1.Safford is a former trooper with the Texas Department of Public Safety and also worked as a police officer for Lake Worth and a jailer for the Tarrant County sheriff's department. He voluntarily relinquished his peace officer's license in December 2000 after resigning from the DPS in May of that year. The reasons for his resignation are no longer available.Dianna Hunt, 817-390-7084Twitter: @DiannaHuntHave more to add? News tip? Tell us
