Man who stalked Las Cruces woman for 12 years sentenced

LAS CRUCES — A researcher at New Mexico State University told state District Judge Richard Jacquez on Tuesday she believed the man who had stalked her for more than 12 years would never stop without undergoing mental health treatment.

Paul Pratapas, 43, pleaded guilty to a felony charge of aggravated stalking in violation of a protection order under a plea agreement.

For the victim, it concluded another chapter in an ordeal spanning hundreds of unwanted email messages and attempts by Pratapas to reach her through third parties, track her down and even enter her workplace. Describing the effects on her sense of security and wellbeing, she said, “I am the victim of his mental situation.”

Last October, NMSU issued a campus-wide alert after Pratapas, who lived in Tennessee at the time, turned up on the Las Cruces campus where the victim works. Days earlier, Pratapas had emailed the victim in violation of a protection order, according to charging documents.

Then, on Oct. 3, a criminal complaint states he attempted to enter a secured area of the building where the victim works and told an employee he was a new hire seeking a key card, violating both the protection order and a campus-wide ban that had been in effect since 2016.

According to NMSU police, Pratapas had also filed three applications seeking employment in the victim’s department.

The victim’s 2016 domestic violence petition reported verbal and emotional abuse by Pratapas dating back to 2013, when they both lived out of state and briefly dated, followed by harassment after she broke off their relationship. In a 2016 criminal complaint, police said that after Pratapas discovered she had moved to Las Cruces, he sent gifts to her office, contacted friends and family members to seek information about her and traveled from Illinois to show up at a public gathering where she was present. He then allegedly photographed her and posted a picture of her on social media.

In 2017, Pratapas was charged with aggravated stalking for attempting to contact her directly and through family members, in violation of a seven-year protective order. The order barred Pratapas from being in New Mexico, but in June 2017, Las Cruces police charged him with violating it after he was found staying at a motel in town. Prosecutors later dropped that case.

Separately, a grand jury indicted Pratapas that year with aggravated stalking. State District Judge Conrad Perea ultimately found him guilty at a 2018 bench trial and sentenced him to 18 months with credit for time he had been held in custody with the rest suspended, followed by supervised probation including 40 hours of community service to be completed in Illinois, according to court records. The sentence also mandated “long-term counseling services to address his behavioral issues,” including therapy as recommended.

In January, a grand jury again indicted Pratapas for aggravated stalking, this time over the events of last fall. While the case was pending trial, Jacquez found that Pratapas violated his conditions of release by again emailing the victim, and ordered him held without bond.

Pratapas averted a jury trial by agreeing to plead guilty for a sentence of three years in prison, with credit for the time he had been in custody and the rest suspended, followed by supervised probation in Illinois.

The victim said the plea agreement had come as a surprise to her but she had endorsed the conditions because she felt unsafe with him in town. She added, however, that she anticipated he would continue harassing her unless he addressed “his core problem, which is his mental health.”

Jacquez ordered that the supervised probation include 60 hours of community service, a mandatory needs assessment and fulfillment of treatment recommendations.

Jacquez thanked the victim “for being a voice for yourself … and being a voice for others,” and warned Pratapas to “forget about her, leave her alone, don’t even think about her,” or he would face serving out his sentence behind bars.

“Every individual deserves to feel safe and secure,” the judge said.