Michael David Barrett, who thought it was OK to stalk ESPN Reporter and Dancing With The Stars contestant Erin Andrews and secretly make videos of her as she changed clothes in her hotel room and then posted them on the Internet, was sentenced to 30 months in jail Monday, according to the LA Times.
Michael David Barrett pled guilty to having the intent to "harass or to cause substantial emotional distress" to Andrews. Barrett tried to sell his photos to the website TMZ.com and to other online publications. And when the Erin Andrews videos hit the Internet, CBS News and Bill O'Reilly had either actual or still frame photos from the videos as part of their telecasts!
Barrett shot video of Erin Andrews in hotel rooms in three states as she traveled for ESPN. Barrett would book a room next to Andrews and do his work from there. Why the hotels would give a room to a person who asked to be next to Erin Andrews is one for the books.
Andrews thinks her stalker's 30-month sentence is "not enough" and said she's at "the angry stage." I really don't blame her. Stalking of celebrities either online via email or in the way Erin Andrews was is just plain evil. The trouble is law enforcement doesn't do enough to make hard examples of the criminals who engage in such practices.
Even if a person doesn't like Erin Andrews or me, it doesn't give them the right to bother us. Frankly, this is where I do admire Rush Limbaugh (Did I say that?). Rush certainly gets a lot of the same kind of treatment (Well, OK. Except for the video camera thing) that celebrities get. But Limbaugh manages to roll on; Rush's $400 million Clear Channel contract buys him a lot of security and legal projection, too.
Stay tuned.
No comments:
Post a Comment