A former Department of Public Safety trooper accused of stalking his ex-wife set up a profile in the woman's name on an adult website then sent men to her house for sex, according to Tarrant County prosecutors.
"I just want to get laid," the website profile began, flashing a picture of the woman.
Prosecutors Steven Gebhardt and Andrea Townsend told jurors the profile - and the threatening phone calls, property damage and graffiti that the woman and her family endured - came from her ex-husband, Kevin Safford, 41, of Fort Worth.
"This is like a puzzle," Townsend told jurors during opening statements Tuesday in Saffords' trial on stalking and online impersonation charges. "All the pieces fit together and point to this man."
Safford has maintained he is innocent, and his attorneys, Harold Johnson and Liz Cortright, suggested through questioning Tuesday that the website and incidents may have come from a former boyfriend or someone else.
The woman, Lawana Siney, of Saginaw, testified Tuesday morning that the stalking started in May 2009 with insults - mostly "slut" - that were spray-painted onto her house and car. Then came the damage to her property.
Finally men starting calling her at work and showing up at her house at all hours, expecting sex that they believed had been promised on the website Fling.com, which Townsend described as a "not-so-nice dating website."
Siney said she did not set up the site. The photo that was used was one taken of her at work that she had e-mailed to Safford, she testified.
In October 2009 her mother and aunt received phone calls threatening to harm her, according to testimony.
Under questioning from Safford's attorney, however, Siney said she initially believed the incidents were caused by a boyfriend she started seeing after she and Safford divorced. She said she later became convinced that Safford was behind them. Her mother and aunt testified that they could identify Safford's voice from the phone calls they received.
State records show that Safford was a trooper with the DPS before voluntarily surrendering his peace officer license in December 2000 for undisclosed reasons. Before that, he was a peace officer with the Lake Worth police department and a jailer for the Tarrant County Sheriff's Department.
Testimony is expected to continue for several days in state District Judge Sharen Wilson's court.
-Dianna Hunt
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