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NYC jury gets case of man charged with stalking Uma Thurman
2008-05-05
A celebrity-obsessed loner "terrified" Uma Thurman by flooding her with phone calls and e-mails, ringing her doorbell at all hours and threatening to kill himself if he couldn't meet her, a prosecutor said Monday in closing arguments. "This isn't about love for Uma Thurman," Assistant District Attorney Jessica Taub told jurors. "This is about self-absorption." Jack Jordan, 37, is on trial in state Supreme Court in Manhattan on charges of stalking and aggravated harassment; he faces up to a year in jail if convicted. Jurors began deliberations Monday afternoon before leaving for the day. They were expected to resume Tuesday morning. Defense lawyer George Vomvolakis conceded in his closing argument that Jordan's behavior was obsessive, but said his client did not have criminal intent to scare or harass the "Kill Bill" and "Pulp Fiction" actress. "He's trying to get to the woman he loves -- although it's an obsession -- in the hope that she will love him back," Vomvolakis said. "Jack Jordan is not charged with obsession. Obsession is not a crime." Vomvolakis also complained that the case went to trial only because a celebrity was involved. But Taub countered by saying that Jordan's actions indicated his intent to hound or harass anyone who stood in his way because "he wanted to be with Uma Thurman and he would not take no for an answer." "The defendant drove through every single stop sign that was in his path," the prosecutor said. She said he tried to emotionally blackmail Thurman and her family by threatening to kill himself; harassed her by ringing her doorbell at all hours of the day and night; and stuffed letters into her mailbox or left them on her movie set -- but was thwarted numerous times by her relatives and her staff. "She was terrified by this," she said. Last Thursday, Thurman testified about a card Jordan delivered to her trailer in Manhattan's SoHo section, where she was filming "My Super Ex-Girlfriend." It bore a drawing of an open grave, a headstone and a man standing on the edge of a razor blade. A spiral of random words referred to "chocolate, mouth, soft, kissing" and declared, "My hands should be on your body at all times." "I was completely freaked out," the 38-year-old actress said of the drawing, which was on a religious confirmation card. "It was almost like a nightmare. It was scary." Taub said a card like that from a stranger amounts to harassment. "This is not `roses are red, violets are blue,'" the prosecutor said. "This is not an innocuous little love note." Prosecutors say Jordan began stalking Thurman in 2005 and, following the incident with the confirmation card, was involuntarily committed to a mental institution. When he got out, prosecutors say he started showing up at the front doorstep of her Greenwich Village town house. Jordan, who lives with his parents in Gaithersburg, Md., is an out-of-work lifeguard who was living in his car at the time of his arrest last year.
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