Posted on 03/17/2006 8:40:03 AM PST by Great Communicator
Monica Crowley's alleged stalker entered the broadcasting beauty's name into his laptop 9,000 times, it was revealed yesterday as the jury got the case. Two alternate jurors dismissed yesterday predicted homeless artist Ronald Martin would beat the charges - despite e-mails and other evidence suggesting he was obsessed with Crowley and she was frightened of him.
"I don't think he intended to harm her. There was no evidence of that," one of the alternates told the Daily News.
Jurors began deliberations after a prosecutor told them Martin "intended to harass, annoy and alarm" Crowley, while a defense attorney countered that "a series of misunderstandings" led to the charges.
Martin was arrested and charged in July 2004 with aggravated harassment and stalking - misdemeanors that could send him to jail for a year if he's convicted.
A computer technician testified yesterday that when he analyzed Martin's laptop computer he found the suspect had entered Crowley's name more than 9,000 times, and had downloaded numerous photos of the blond, blue-eyed broadcaster. In the four-day Manhattan Supreme Court trial, prosecutors claimed Martin bombarded Crowley with terrifying e-mails, stalked her outside her offices, and accosted her on a subway platform. NYPD Detective Joseph Cornetta read a handful of e-mails to the jury that sounded creepy, but had no direct threats. Cornetta testified a printout of 450 other e-mails was swiped from his desk.
"This wasn't a misunderstanding, it wasn't a crush, it wasn't a publicity stunt. This was criminal," prosecutor Artie McConnell told the jury. "He intended to harass, annoy and alarm her."
During the trial, Crowley testified Martin stalked her outside the Fox News studios in midtown when she worked there, and outside the WABC-AM radio studios, where she hosts a Saturday broadcast. "I was shaking in fear," testified Crowley, 37, who is also a conservative commentator for MSNBC and worked for President Richard Nixon after he left office.
But defense attorney Stuart Singer countered that the evidence against Martin proved nothing more than "a series of misunderstandings and confusions by all."
"We basically have a fan who had a crush," Singer said. "Where is the intent? That is the key element to do any harm."
Singer also called for a mistrial yesterday, after six of the deliberating jurors said they saw the front page of Wednesday's Daily News touting the case. But Justice Arlene Silverman rejected the motion after the jurors assured her they didn't read about the case.
GMTA.
I give up; what do you think it means? What do you think that I think it means ?
I give up; what do you think it means? What do you think that I think it means ?
It's another line from "The Princess Bride". Vizzini keeps using the word "inconceivable" in every possible situation. Finally Inigo Montoya says "You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means."
Oh, my bad! After watching The Princess Bride, oh, twenty or thirty times through the mid-90s, I have fallen off. Must watch it again! Thanks for the reminder! BTW, have you seen the actor Wallace Shawn (Vizzini) playing the psychiatrist on the Sunday night medical examiner show, "Crossing Jordan"?
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