Canadian Actress Convicted Of Stalking Alec Baldwin
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork/AP) -- A Canadian actress was convicted Thursday of stalking Alec Baldwin with yearning emails and phone calls that spiraled into showing up at his homes.
Genevieve Sabourin was tearful but largely mum as a judge found her guilty on five charges of stalking and harassment and sentenced her to six months in jail. That was on top of a month she's already serving because of her courtroom outbursts.
Canadian Actress Convicted Of Stalking Alec Baldwin
"I haven't done anything wrong. I'm innocent,'' she told Manhattan Criminal Court Judge Robert Mandelbaum when he invited her to speak. "You're doing a mistake right now.''
Mandelbaum told Sabourin she waged a relentless and escalating campaign against Baldwin. He also issued an order of protection for Sabourin to stay away from the Baldwins for five years.
Sabourin, 41, who hails from the Montreal suburb of Candiac, had turned down a plea offer that would have spared her jail time.
Her attorney, Todd Spodek, said he plans to appeal the verdict.
Hilaria Baldwin released a statement on the sentencing Thursday afternoon.
"Now that it's finally over, we feel safe, relieved and happy to move forward," she said, thanking the district attorney, judge "and everyone who supported us and helped provide us with peace of mind."
At the trial, Alec Baldwin had testified he met during a 2000 movie shoot in Montreal and had dinner a decade later in New York.
The dinner came after mutual friend Martin Bregman, producer of movies including "Scarface,'' had Baldwin call her as she sought career help.
She said the dinner ended in a sexual encounter, which Baldwin denies.
Baldwin said Sabourin then besieged him with unwanted phone calls and emails. After a March 2012 message said she could infiltrate his apartment building and his now-wife's yoga class, "I knew that she was dangerous,'' he testified.
WEB EXTRA: Read Email Exchanges (pdf)
"It was nightmarish," he said. "No matter what was said to her, she kept coming. More emails, More phone calls. She was desperate."
"You're lying!" Sabourin shouted as he testified on Tuesday. "You delete women after you have sex with them."
Then Sabourin showed up at a film screening he was hosting and at his Hamptons and Manhattan homes. She was arrested outside his apartment building in April 2012. A doorman testified that Sabourin was angry that Baldwin did not want to see her.
Sabourin, however, said the actor invited her to New York in 2010, took her on a dream date that ended in an amorous night filled with promises for the future, and then dropped her.
"I gave him my heart, my body, my soul," she said, "He made promises to me."
She said they maintained a fraught email and phone relationship over the next two years. While he did send some friendly emails, he said he also implored her to leave him alone.
She said the overall message from him was mixed and she felt entitled to ask what had gone wrong.
"It's not because he's rich and famous that he can take advantage of women and throw them in the garbage,'' she said.
In his summation to the judge, Spodek said Sabourin had a legitimate, brief romance with Baldwin.
"She's not entitled to an explanation for a dream that he sold her?'' Spodek said. "Mr. Baldwin doesn't have carte blanche to use the criminal justice system to sort out his relationships.''
Prosecutors said what she called a quest for "closure'' was an obsession that crossed the line into crime.
"None of this is to say that the defendant's conduct in this case isn't sad," Manhattan Assistant District Attorney Zachary Stendig said in his summation. "But it doesn't make her conduct justifiable."
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