Glenview sex offender gets 5-year prison sentence for stalking, threatening Indiana couple

A registered sex offender from Glenview was sentenced to five years in federal prison after pleading guilty to stalking, threatening and harassing an Indiana couple.

According to court records, Patrick Kearney, 41, began targeting the couple in 2019 and continued until his arrest in 2022.

Prosecutors said Kearney met his female victim in college in the “early 2000s” and tried to pursue a relationship that was not reciprocated.

The woman told authorities she hadn’t seen Kearney since college, but began receiving anonymous handwritten letters in the mail at her Indiana home saying she should have died in the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.

Prosecutors said Kearney sent the woman 23 letters between September 2019 and September 2022, most referencing 9/11 and often accompanied with “abusive language” and drawings of the World Trade Center towers burning.

In addition to the letters, prosecutors said Kearney began calling the female victim at all hours leaving threatening voicemails and using different numbers to avoid being blocked.

Prosecutors also detailed a series of packages Kearney sent his victims in 2022 containing roach poison and notes stating the couple should eat the poison.

On July 11, 2022, prosecutors said, Kearney called the male victim and left a voicemail stating the couple “should be shot in the... head.”

As the couple planned their 2022 wedding, Kearney would call the pair posing as a customer service representative from businesses where the couple had registered for wedding gifts and then would threaten to show up at their wedding and ruin it.

Evidence from court records shows Kearney called the female victim at least 357 times between 2019 and 2022, leaving more than 120 voicemails. He called his male victim 47 times and left 35 voicemails.

Kearney will have to serve at least 85% of his sentence after pleading guilty to multiple counts of stalking, transmitting threats via interstate commerce and making harassing telephone calls. Once released, he will be on supervised probation for three years and was also ordered to pay a $500 fine, prosecutors said.

Officials at the U.S. Attorney’s office in Indiana said Kearney is also a registered sex offender in Illinois.

According to Illinois State Police’s sex offender registry, Kearney first appeared on the list in 2017 after being convicted of possession of child pornography. The state website indicates his victim was 13 years old and he was 32 at the time of the crime.