Sufficiency of the evidence; Aggravated stalking (MCL 750.411i); Making a terrorist threat (MCL 750.543m); “Unconsented contact” (MCL 750.411i(1)(f)); Phone calls to third parties; “Course of conduct” (MCL750.411i(1)(a)); “Separate noncontinuous” acts; Pobursky v Gee; Applicability of the “last antecedent” rule; Intent for purposes of MCL 750.543b(a)(iii); Jury instructions on unconsented contact; Other acts evidence; MRE 404(b); MRE 401; MRE 403; Prosecutorial misconduct; Step into the victim’s shoes argument; Plain error review; Sentencing; Scoring of OVs 4 & 19; MCL 777.34(1)(a) & (2); MCL 777.39(b)

The court held that there was sufficient evidence to support defendant’s aggravated stalking and making a terrorist threat convictions. It rejected his challenges to the jury instructions on unconsented contact and the admission of other acts evidence. While the prosecutor improperly “exhorted the jurors to step into the victim’s shoes[,]” the court found that reversal was unwarranted. Finally, it upheld the scoring of 10 points for OV 4 and 15 points for OV 19 in sentencing defendant. He was sentenced as a fourth-offense habitual offender to 5 to 25 years. The case arose from three phone calls he made in one morning related to his belief that a deputy (R) was harassing him. As to his aggravated stalking conviction, the court noted that “the statute does not require direct contact with another individual.” The contact at issue here was phone calls to third parties. The court concluded a “rational jury could find that the apparent intent behind defendant’s threatening phone calls was to have his threats passed along to [R] because defendant made the threatening phone calls to the courthouse, the city manager, and the 911 dispatcher, all of whom were likely to communicate with [R]. Notably, [his] call to 911 even directed the dispatcher to ‘tell him,’ almost certainly referring to [R], about how defendant was tired of being harassed and about defendant’s threat to use violence if he was harassed further.” In addition, the record reflected that his threats were communicated to R. Thus, “a rational jury could find that the phone calls constituted harassment of [R] because defendant’s threats in the phone calls were directed toward [R] such that defendant was harassing the deputy through those intermediaries.” As to the terrorist threat conviction, “a rational jury could infer that the intent of defendant’s threatened act was to intimidate or coerce the police in general, and [R] specifically, into allowing defendant to be in the park or otherwise stop enforcing the law against” him. As to his prosecutorial misconduct claim, the court held that “defendant’s substantial rights were not affected. The prosecutor’s remarks were made only in closing, were ‘relatively brief[,]’” and the trial court instructed the jury that the “‘lawyers’ statements and arguments are not evidence.’” Affirmed.