Photo courtesy AP/Louis Lanzano
UPDATE: Jack Jordon was convicted of stalking and aggravated harassment; the jury found him not guilty of two second-degree aggravated harassment charges. Jordan now faces 90 days in jail for the stalking and up to a year behind bars for the aggravated harassment. According to the Times, his lawyer said his client had turned down a plea bargain for time in a mental treatment facility, sticking with his story that his behavior was eccentric, but playful flirtation.
EARLIER: Closing arguments came yesterday in the Uma Thurman stalker trial, and today the jury deliberations continue. The lawyer for the alleged stalker, 37-year-old Jack Jordan, urged the jury to “think about your lives and what you have done in your lives in the name of love. Think about the stupid things you have done.” After all, who hasn’t slept in a car outside a lady’s apartment, rang the doorbell at all hours of the night, and sent affectionate little notes with drawings of razors and grave sites? Did Ione Skye take Lloyd Dobler to court for standing outside with a boom box blasting "In Your Eyes"?
Jordan’s lawyer acknowledged that “he is an eccentric man. He has a weird sense of humor. But there was a method to his madness. He wanted to meet her and see if she could possibly feel the same way as him.” But prosecutor Jessica Taub countered that Jordan “is a smart man. This is a man who graduated from the University of Chicago, one of the best schools in the country.” And she told the jurors they should imagine themselves at a party ten years from now, gabbing about the case: “I submit that you will say, ‘It was about a stalker.’”
If it the jury decides the case is about a stalker – and not just a self-described “shy man” who’s gone off his antipsychotic meds – Jordan could spend about a year in jail. That would mean he’d be out just in time to applaud her at the premiere of Eloise in Paris, in which Thurman plays the nanny.
