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Man Accused Of Making 2,000+ Obscene 911 Calls Gets 3 Weeks In Jail

SANTA ANA (CBS) — Israel Vasquez, the man who bedeviled 911 dispatchers the past year with more than 2,000 obscene 911 calls, plead guilty Friday and was sentenced to three weeks in jail and three years probation.

Vasquez, 24, pleaded guilty to five misdemeanor counts of annoying or harassing 911 operators, a misdemeanor count of possession of bogus government-issued identification, and a misdemeanor count of falsely representing himself to an officer, according to court records.

Vasquez has been deported twice and it was not immediately certain if Vasquez will be deported a third time. When he was arrested Feb. 25 he was placed in custody on an immigration hold, according to Jim Amormino of the Orange County Sheriff's Department.

Deputy District Attorney Bobby Taghavi offered the plea deal because he felt Vasquez should be heavily supervised.

"We put him on three years of formal probation because if there's any restitution owed to the county or anyone else it gets paid and so he has a supervising probation officer who can make sure if he makes these calls again we know who to go to," Taghavi said.

Two misdemeanor counts of making harassing calls to 911 were dropped along with two misdemeanor counts of possessing a bogus government-issued identification as part of the plea deal, Taghavi said.

Although investigators suspect Vasquez made thousands of obscene phone calls they only had evidence of the seven he was charged with because the disposable phones he made the calls with were thrown out, Taghavi said.

If Vasquez violates probation "he has about four years of jail time hanging over his head," Taghavi said.

After Vasquez was arrested, Amormino explained his m.o. "If a male 911 operator answered, he wouldn't say anything, hang up and call back hoping a woman would answer."

One dispatcher received about 1,000 of the calls alone, Amormino said.

 (©2011 CBS Local Media, a division of CBS Radio Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Wire services contributed to this report.)

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