Court told accused Uma Thurman stalker just "creepy"
Updated: 2008-04-29 09:38
Actress Uma Thurman arrives at the Cinema Society screening of 'The Life Before Her Eyes' on Tuesday, April 15, 2008, in New York. [Agencies]
A man accused of stalking actress Uma Thurman for two years may have been creepy and obsessive but he did not break the law, his lawyer told a New York jury on Monday.
Jack Jordan, 37, is accused of sending harassing e-mails to Thurman's father and brother, loitering for hours on the steps of Thurman's Manhattan apartment and visiting her trailer on a movie set.
He faces misdemeanor counts of stalking and harassment.
Thurman was expected to testify in Manhattan criminal court later on Monday or early on Tuesday, court officials said.
"He loved her and possibly still does. He never wanted to annoy her, threaten her or alarm her," said Jordan's lawyer, George Vomvolakis. "Creepy? Yes. Obsessed? Yes. Criminal? No."
But assistant district attorney Colleen Walsh said Jordan engaged in "emotional blackmail" of Thurman and her family, telling her brother he would kill himself if he did not hear from the actress within 24 to 48 hours.
"Enough is enough," Walsh said. "The price of fame is not this high."
Jordan once gave the 37-year-old actress' personal assistant a package containing a letter, his driver's license, a postcard of the Statute of Liberty and other objects.
"I feel in love with you," the letter said. "I think you should call me up, let me watch you act on the set some more, we should date or move in together, and then get married."
"I gave up describing the contents of my heart to famous women I don't know after Carol Channing broke my heart in the early nineties," he wrote.
Jordan is a 1994 graduate of the University of Chicago and, until his arrest, was pursuing a master's degree at Mills College in Oakland, California, Vomvolakis said.
If convicted, he faces up to one year in jail.
Thurman has appeared in nearly 40 films including both "Kill Bill" movies and "Pulp Fiction," which brought her an Academy Award nomination for best supporting actress.
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