Ivanka Trump stalking suspect pleads not guilty to upgraded charges
(CBS/AP) Ivanka Trump's stalker suspect just won't give up. Justin Massler continued to contact Trump and her relatives despite facing harassment charges and a court order to stay away, prosecutors alleged Tuesday. He is being held without bail.
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Massler, a 28-year-old from Reno, Nev., who legally changed his named to Cloud Starchaser and provided his address as "a volcano in Hawaii," wasoriginally arrested last yearafter a series of emails and tweets revealing his fixation for the NBC "Celebrity Apprentice" co-host.
"I should stop bothering her, but I like her," Massler told a detective on a plane ride to New York following his arrest last year, according to a court document released Tuesday.
Massler tweeted that his "dream in life" was to marry Ivanka Trump, daughter of Donald and Ivana Trump. According to the court complaint, his remarks became more bizarre as he threatened to commit suicide in Ivanka's Manhattan jewelry store. He also tweeted that he wanted to "talk some sense into" her husband, Jared Kushner, in addition to wanting to "commandeer" the newspaper Kushner publishes, the New York Observer.
Assistant District Attorney Lucrece Francois told a judge on Tuesday that Massler would die for Trump and "would go down in a hail of gunfire."
According to Massler's lawyer, George Vomvolakis, Massler's Internet comments didn't amount to crimes as he spent much time in a mental hospital and never intended to follow through with his tweets.
"He's got a very eccentric sense of humor," Vomvolakis said last year. The lawyer didn't immediately return a phone call Tuesday evening.
Despite his release last year on $10,000 bond and being ordered not to contact Trump and her relatives, Massler continued to contact the co-host, Kushner, and others close to her in recent months, prosecutors say.
Massler was recently arrested in Los Angeles after he failed to appear in court several times.
If he is convicted of the felony criminal contempt charges, he faces up to four years in prison.
