Judge finds Spokane man guilty of stalking woman

A persistent Spokane stalker who threatened to kidnap and kill a woman’s children because she wouldn’t date him was convicted Monday of two felonies.

Thomas Melvin Crook, 42, has so many criminal convictions that the only standard prison term he can get when he is sentenced Feb. 3 for felony stalking is the five-year statutory maximum.

Superior Court Judge Harold Clarke III also found Crook guilty of felony harassment Monday in a nonjury trial.

Deputy Prosecutor Rachel Sterett said Crook faces a standard range of 41/4 to 5 years on the harassment conviction, and she plans to argue that the two sentences should be served consecutively.

Crook has a long criminal history that includes convictions for stalking another woman in Spokane County and a man in San Francisco before he targeted his latest victim, Terra Florian, last spring. Florian had befriended Crook but told him she didn’t want a romantic relationship when he sent flowers and pizza to her workplace in a limousine.

After that, Crook tormented Florian, her mother and her ex-husband with scores of harassing and threatening phone calls and misdirected visits by pizza deliverymen, taxi drivers, Roto-Rooter workers and a city maintenance worker who was told to shut off Florian’s water.

Crook had 38 convictions and was a fugitive in March 2002 when a Secret Witness reward was offered for his capture. One of his convictions was for stealing a car in a case in which he had been charged with raping the vehicle’s owner. He also had been convicted of burglaries, forgeries, theft and reckless burning during a break-in.

Testimony indicated Crook placed a harassing call to Florian’s ex-husband, Steven Florian, from a phone in the Spokane Transit Authority’s downtown bus Plaza, where Crook was working as a janitor employed by Argus Janitorial Services.

Jackie Fountain, director of human resources for Argus, said the company relied on another firm that provides background checks for employers. That check failed to reveal Crook’s convictions, Fountain said.

She said Argus employed Crook less than three months and began using a different background-checking service in October that subjects job candidates to a more thorough nationwide review. Current employees are rechecked annually, Fountain said.