Uma To Be Star Witness In Stalker Case
"Kill Bill" actress Uma Thurman returns to the spotlight, but this time around she won't be on a Hollywood movie set or a red carpet.
Instead Thurman will be testifying in court in Lower Manhattan.
According to CBS 2, the actress will be the star witness in a trial against her alleged stalker, a former mental patient named Jack Jordan.
Jordan's note that his hands should be on Uma Thurman's body "at all times" may be creepy but it is not criminal, a lawyer said Monday in defense of the man accused of stalking the actress.
Lawyer George Vomvolakis told the state Supreme Court jury in his opening statement that Jordan "does not think the way you and I think. He doesn't know the boundaries you and I know. He thinks it's romantic."
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But Assistant District Attorney Colleen Walsh told the jurors that Jordan had tried to communicate with Thurman sporadically for more than two years, "with the intent to harass, annoy, threaten and alarm" her.
Walsh said Jordan used "emotional blackmail" to try to get to the "Pulp Fiction" star. She said he sent her family an e-mail saying, "I will kill myself if I do not get to see Uma Thurman within 24 to 48 hours."
Walsh said Thurman's family kept that and several other e-mails from the actress because they knew the messages would cause her fear. The prosecutor said Thurman, 37, and her family members will testify about the messages from Jordan.
Walsh said Jordan escalated his contact attempts by showing up at a Lower Manhattan movie set on Nov. 8, 2005, where Thurman was filming "My Super Ex Girlfriend" and tried to get into her trailer.
The prosecutor said Jordan also appeared at Thurman's Greenwich Village home, where she lives with her two children, and rang her doorbell. At one point, one of Thurman's employees came out and found him sitting on her steps, Walsh said.
Vomvolakis said his client had no intention to harass or threaten Thurman because he loved her, and he said so in a letter to her.
"Creepy? Yes. Obsessed? Yes. Criminal? No," the defense lawyer told the jury.
Jordan, 37, is on trial on misdemeanor charges of stalking and aggravated harassment. He was arrested in October 2007 after being accused of following and trying to contact Thurman from early 2005 until just before his arrest.
Vomvolakis had said in January he hoped to avoid a trial and work out a plea deal in which Jordan would enter a psychiatric treatment program. He said Jordan had been diagnosed with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.
Jordan is free on $10,000 bail. He is a 1994 graduate of the University of Chicago and is a graduate student at Mills College in Oakland, Calif, his attorney said. Jordan now lives in Maryland with his parents.