CAROLINE A. PARCEL v. STEPHEN PARCEL

 

NOT FOR PUBLICATION WITHOUT THE

APPROVAL OF THE APPELLATE DIVISION

SUPERIOR COURT OF NEW JERSEY

APPELLATE DIVISION

DOCKET NO. A-6658-04T16658-04T1

CAROLINE A. PARCEL,

Plaintiff-Respondent,

v.

STEPHEN P. PARCEL,

Defendant-Appellant.

________________________________________________________________

 

Submitted May 16, 2006 - Decided June 2, 2006

Before Judges Lefelt and R. B.

Coleman.

On appeal from the Superior Court of

New Jersey, Chancery Division, Family

Part, Hunterdon County, Docket

No. FV-10-347-05.

Carter, Van Rensselaer & Caldwell,

attorneys for appellant (William J.

Caldwell, on the brief).

Respondent, Caroline A. Parcel,

submitted a pro se brief.

PER CURIAM

Defendant Stephen Parcel appeals, claiming that Judge Stephen Rubin erroneously found him guilty of domestic violence. Defendant argues that his conduct did not qualify as harassment under N.J.S.A. 2C:33-4, and the final domestic violence order entered against him "diminishes the suffering of true victims of domestic violence and misused the legislative vehicle which was developed to protect them." Peranio v. Peranio, 280 N.J. Super. 47, 56 (App. Div. 1995).

The record reflects that while the parties were in the middle of a divorce, defendant called plaintiff five times asking whether she would go to the shore. Plaintiff explained that defendant was "always trying to find out where I am at all times." Plaintiff told defendant to stop calling because she was going to a concert that evening and would not go to the shore.

Plaintiff explained that she always tells him to stop, but he "never listens. . . . Nothing makes a difference. He is obsessed with me and he can't stay away from me and he has my children as agents for him, tracking me, following me and it scares the heck out of me."

Later that evening, after plaintiff came home from the concert, she discovered that defendant had called her about sixty-four more times. She was "a little shocked and . . . didn't know what to do." Defendant explained his conduct by telling plaintiff that he was trying to cause her to have a nervous breakdown, which he hoped would coerce her into resuming their marriage.

Judge Rubin found there was no question that defendant's purpose in making the phone calls was to harass plaintiff. The judge concluded "under [N.J.S.A.] 2C:33-4c that the great number of calls that were made and plus the testimony of the plaintiff that there's a history of this kind of behavior on the part of the defendant . . . constitutes acts of domestic violence."

Harassment can constitute domestic violence. N.J.S.A. 2C: 25-19a(13); see Peranio, supra, 280 N.J. Super. at 54-55. A person who repeatedly commits acts with the purpose to "alarm or seriously annoy" another person, is guilty of harassment. The five calls alone, considering defendant's history of controlling, obsessive, and annoying behavior might qualify as harassment. The sixty-four missed phone calls from defendant's number, that plaintiff noted on her cell phone, unmistakably establishes harassing conduct that qualifies as domestic violence.

 
Affirmed.

(continued)

(continued)

3

A-6658-04T1

June 2, 2006