Victims of a former “Mother of the Year” said their home became a prison when the woman carried out a series of perverse pranks on them because she was jealous they got the house she wanted.
Kathy Rowe, 53, will spend one year under home electronic surveillance and five years’ probation for, among other things, posting an online advertisement that invited men to do sexually explicit things to the wife. Rowe pleaded guilty to felony stalking in November.
“I just wanted to say how humiliated I am by my behavior, that this is not representative of who I am,” Rowe told the court at her sentencing Friday.
The victims, Jerry Rice and Janice Ruhter, testified they need counseling and are enrolled in self-defense classes as a result of the paranoia Rowe caused.
"I felt most secure away from my home. The house became my prison,” said Ruhter. “As soon as one door was opened, it was immediately locked behind me.”
They said the emotional scars remain from the scary, ten-month saga that coincided with the birth of their second child. Rice told the judge he was diagnosed with PTSD and needs medication to cope with the lingering stress.
“The characterization of her email correspondence with several men while assuming my wife's identity and asking them to come rape my wife as a childish prank is absurd,” said Rice.
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Rice and Ruhter asked Judge Kathleen Lewis to give Rowe jail time, but Lewis called this a puzzling aberration to Rowe’s life and weighed heavily the impact jail time would have on her disabled daughter.
Rowe told prosecutors she became extremely angry when a home she wanted in Carmel Valley was sold to another couple in 2011. Her attorney Brad Patton says mounting stress over caring for a sick husband and disabled daughter caused Rowe, who was named one of “San Diego’s 50 Best Moms” in 2006 by Time Warner Cable, to snap in an unusual way.
A felony complaint outlines how, in retribution, Rowe made life a living hell for the new homeowners.
Rowe impersonated Ruhter and posted a graphic advertisement for the “Carmel Valley Freak Show” online, encouraging men to come to their home and give Ruhter sexual favors of all types when her husband was not at home, according to prosecutors.
The language in the advertisement, the complaint says, was crude and very specific about the sex acts Ruhter would engage in.
Two men actually responded to the ad, and one showed up at the Carmel Valley home. Her attorney said she never intended anyone to show up or to cause the couple any actual harm.
But Rowe did not stop there, prosecutors say. She also sent over $1,000 worth of unsolicited magazines and books to the victims’ home, posted an online ad for a high school New Year’s Eve party and advertised a free Mexican fireworks giveaway on the Fourth of July at the home.
Additional pranks included sending Valentine’s Day cards in Rice’s name to other women in the neighborhood, listing the house for sale and asking religious groups to visit, the complaint says.
Rowe is now prohibited from contacting the victims or getting within 100 yards of them for 10 years – an important provision to the victims because Rowe ended up buying a home less than a mile away.
