Hefner pleads guilty to harassing calls
The estranged husband of former state Senate President Stanley C. Rosenberg pleaded guilty yesterday to making hundreds of harassing calls while he was in a psychiatric hospital, bombarding four hospital workers with calls about sex and drugs.
Bryon Hefner, 31, was sentenced to a year’s probation by Judge Elizabeth Cremins after he pleaded guilty in Concord District Court to four counts of making disturbing phone calls and didn’t contest two counts of criminal harassment.
Hefner was indicted in April on 10 counts connected to sexual-assault claims on Beacon Hill. Rosenberg stepped down from his top spot in the state Senate as his husband’s alleged crimes began to make headlines and then eventually resigned from public office in May.
The crimes Hefner admitted to yesterday took place last winter when he was a patient at McLean Hospital’s Lincoln Residence. Police say Hefner used prankcall websites to repeatedly phone staff members about sex and drugs, calling the facility and staff members’ cellphones.
By Christmas Day — just five days after Hefner, who suffers from mental-health and substance-abuse issues, arrived at the facility — McLean staff called police and told the cops they had received about 50 calls about “random topics.”
The number of calls escalated, with staff reporting more than 100 on just a single January day. The calls came from a range of different numbers, mostly with Massachusetts area codes, including one from Hefner’s number. Cops eventually determined Hefner was using websites including Prankdial and Prankowl to call the staff.
The McLean workers told police they found it particularly disturbing that many of the calls mentioned them by name, and some included statements such as “I saw you last night” and “I’m watching you.” Others were about sex, car crashes, pregnancies or simply a person yelling “make it stop” over and over, police say.
Others were more outlandish in nature, such as telling staff, “We have your shipment of crack, to pick it up.”
The calls would come more often at night, staff told police. If they came while Hefner was around, he would ask who they were from and would try to comfort the staff member if the recipient was upset. He’d then “make it a point” of noting that he was right there when the call came in, so it couldn’t be from him.
Cops armed with subpoenas eventually tracked the calls back to Hefner’s email address.
Hefner is forbidden from having contact with McLean Hospital or its employees and from using prank-call services. The judge ordered him to comply with mental-health treatment.