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A West Los Angeles man who sought care at a pair of Veterans Affairs (VA) facilities has been sentenced to 18 years in federal prison for stalking and harassing female physicians there, (DOJ).

Gueorgui Hristov Pantchev, 51, targeted two doctors at the West Los Angeles VA Medical Center, and two others at the VA's Loma Linda facility in San Bernardino County.

During sentencing earlier this week, U.S. District Judge John F. Walter said that Pantchev "is a menace to society -- a description that I don't think I have ever used in describing a criminal defendant," the DOJ reported.

Over the summer, a federal jury . According to evidence presented at trial, Pantchev began sending numerous threatening communications to the West Los Angeles VA physicians -- identified in court documents as Victim C and Victim D -- in 2011. As a result of that harassment, Pantchev was charged by the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office, and was convicted in 2014 of seven counts of stalking and witness intimidation.

However, after serving a state prison sentence, Pantchev was paroled in 2017, at which time he began seeking medical services at the VA's Loma Linda facility, having been barred from the West Los Angeles VA Medical Center, the DOJ said. Pantchev then began stalking, harassing, and intimidating two physicians there, who are identified in court documents as Victim A and Victim B.

In 2020, despite parole conditions, Pantchev again began to seek care at the West Los Angeles VA Medical Center, and started sending harassing and intimidating communications to Victim C and Victim D, as well as their colleagues.

The DOJ noted that Pantchev "deluged" his victims with hundreds of flyers that were "lewd, sexually explicit, and defamatory," and included large pictures of the female physicians. He repeatedly distributed the flyers around the doctors' VA facility and at other locations in Los Angeles.

On the day of Pantchev's arrest in January 2021, he drove to Victim D's home and her child's elementary school, where he distributed sexually explicit flyers that included the doctor's address and contact information, the DOJ said.

"This defendant earned a lengthy prison sentence by terrorizing his victims for years," U.S. Attorney Martin Estrada said in a statement. "The women subjected to his attacks suffered severe emotional distress, including constant fear for their physical safety and the safety of their families. Protecting victims is critical to the mission of our office, and I hope today's sentencing brings them a sense of justice and security."

Counsel for Pantchev did not immediately respond to request for comment.

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