May 6, 2008 6:46 pm US/Eastern
Jury Finds Accused Thurman Stalker Guilty
Jack Jordan Convicted On Counts Of Stalking, Aggravated Harassment
NEW YORK (CBS) ―
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Actress Uma Thurman (right) and her accused stalker, Jack Jordan.
CBS
A jury found the man accused of stalking actress Uma Thurman guilty Tuesday, following just a day of deliberations over whether he was a troubled stalker or just a misguided romantic.
The jury, which consisted of eight men and four women, found Jack Jordan, 37, guilty on one count of stalking and one count aggravated harassment. He was acquitted of two other harassment charges.
For over two years, Jordan, a former mental patient, was relentless in his attempt to court the Oscar-nominated actress and at one point even threatened suicide. But Jordan's attorney, George Vomvolakis, had insisted his client's conduct was not criminal.
Vomvolakis conceded that Jordan's behavior was obsessive, but said there was no criminal intent to scare, harass, annoy or alarm Thurman, whose film credits include "Kill Bill," "Pulp Fiction" and "The Producers."
"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 Monday.
Jordan had turned down a plea deal in which he would have had to spend 18 months in a mental facility.
Digg This Story!Prosecutors argued that Jordan presented a danger in his efforts to contact Thurman and her family.
"This is not about a man in love," Assistant District Attorney Jessica Taub said before deliberations began Monday afternoon.
Taub countered that intent can be determined by a person's actions. "He wanted to be with Uma Thurman and he would not take no for an answer."
When Jordan took the witness stand Friday, he was calm, direct and candid, telling jurors: "I think it was a clumsy and poor way of expressing my emotions for her. I had a longing for her. In retrospect, suicide is a serious thing."
Just a day before, Thurman took the stand herself and had said she was frightened by Jordan's behavior and hoped that if she ignored him, he would go away.
However, Jordan delivered an envelope containing a bizarre note and a drawing during the 2005 Manhattan shoot for the "My Super Ex-Girlfriend" movie.
Thurman told the court: "I found them disturbing. I found this clearly someone very frustrated and in pain, angry and calm and going in and out of reality. And then I found a few things that were frightening. To have a stranger mention the names of my children, I found very disturbing."
She admitted she felt terrified and frightened by his actions.
Jordan had also tried reaching out to Thurman's family, sending e-mails to her father, including the one that indicated he'd considered suicide. Thurman's father said that in the e-mails, Jordan referred to dying, to suicide, to a razor blade, and threatening to use it.
Jordan could now be sentenced to a year behind bars. He had been free on bail during the trial.
The 1994 graduate of the University of Chicago was also a graduate student at Mills College in Oakland, Calif. He had been living with his parents in Gaithersburg, Md., and said he was involuntarily committed to a mental facility in late 2005 after being questioned about his obsession with Thurman.
He was eventually released, and started repeatedly showing up at her apartment last year. At the time of his arrest, he was living out of his car and working part-time as a lifeguard and pool cleaner
(© 2009 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
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