Stalker guilty of years-long harassment
A man who harassed and tormented a young woman for four years, following her not only on the street but from France to Mexico and then to San Francisco, was convicted on stalking charges and faces up to three years in state prison.
Florentino Garcia was found guilty Tuesday in San Francisco Superior Court of stalking and violating a restraining order after a weeklong trial. He is being held in city jail on $100,000 bail and faces sentencing April 19.
Garcia, 42, was arrested by San Francisco police in December, about a month after the victim arrived in the city, authorities said. She had been forced to move to the city, where her father lives, after Garcia followed her from southern France to Mexico and refused to leave
her alone.
The victim, a 28-yearold U.S. citizen, told The Chronicle that Garcia first became infatuated with her when she was working at a restaurant in Nice in 2012. He repeatedly showed up at the restaurant, sent her expensive gifts and train tickets, and wrote her long, obsessive messages. When she left for Mexico to start a business, he followed.
“As a waitress, my job was to be nice to people,” said the victim, who requested that her identity be withheld. “I didn’t think anything of it at first. I knew the guy was a bit off, but it kept getting worse. I tried not to have interactions and would send other waitresses over to deal with him, but when he came all the way across the ocean and found me in another country, I knew things had gotten serious.”
An attorney for Garcia did not respond to requests for comment after the conviction.
In Mexico, the harassment became worse, the victim said. Though she was running a new business, she refrained from using the Internet and shut down her social media accounts in a bid to thwart his advances — but that didn’t stop him. He sent her long messages detailing the clothes she had worn on a particular day and the color of her bicycle as proof he had seen her, even if she had not seen him.
“It was terrifying,” she said. “He would just show up where I worked, at my local restaurants, in my street. I just would never know. There would be times when I’d be out and I’d see him, and I’d become clammy and have to go home.
“The entire time I was in Mexico, I never left my home without someone with me,” she continued. “I couldn’t even go to the grocery store. I felt like a prisoner.”
Police in Mexico helped the woman as much as possible, she said, and at one point deported Garcia, who is a dual French and Spanish citizen. But he returned, forcing her to shut down her business and leave for San Francisco.
“The day before I was set to fly here from Mexico, I got an email from him saying he was preparing his trip to California, too,” she said.
Upon her arrival, she sought help from San Francisco police, and Inspector John Keane of the special victims unit advised her to get a restraining order. Garcia violated the order repeatedly, emailing her, peering into her windows and showing up outside her house, prompting his arrest.
“The victim in this case did nothing wrong, and yet she was subjected to years of stalking behavior,” Keane said.
“Thankfully she had the courage to continue to report this unlawful behavior to law enforcement. The jury was able to immediately recognize Garcia’s behavior as criminal stalking and not the behavior of someone trying to develop a relationship.” The victim said she was looking forward to restoring her life. She lost a lot of friends because of Garcia, she said.
“I’m just so glad this saga has ended,” she said. “For so long, my life completely changed in a direction that was not my choosing because of this one person. I still feel a bit discombobulated, but it feels good because now I can use the Internet. I can ride the bus. All these little things, you take for granted.”