Stalking of Spielberg Alleged in Testimony

A 31-year-old man charged with stalking Steven Spielberg was so sexually obsessed with the film director that he made several attempts to enter Spielberg’s Pacific Palisades estate before being arrested in July with handcuffs, duct tape and a box cutter knife, according to county grand jury transcripts made public Wednesday.

The 209-page account of the grand jury’s secret proceedings that led to Jonathan Norman’s indictment also shows that while Spielberg and his family were in Ireland during Norman’s alleged intrusions, the director feared for their safety and that of his mother, who also lives in Los Angeles.

“I have had a lot of fans and people asking for autographs and wanting to send scripts, but I’ve never had someone stating their intention to do me harm and my family harm,” Spielberg told the grand jury in October. “It was disbelief at first.”

After being notified by authorities that Norman allegedly wanted to rape him and had been arrested, Spielberg testified, he was shaken.

“What was your reaction when you heard about the duct tape and knife and handcuffs?” Deputy Dist. Atty. Rhonda Saunders asked him.

“What anybody’s reaction would be: that he was there for a mission. He was on a mission and, had he not been caught, he would have--you know, thank God, he was caught--he would have completed his mission,” Spielberg answered. “I really felt my life was in danger.”

The transcripts and the indictment of Norman, who remains in custody in lieu of $1 million bail, were unsealed Wednesday by Superior Court Judge Robert Perry, who granted a motion by attorneys for The Times and Copley Newspapers to release them.

The documents do not identify Spielberg by name, and another court order by Superior Court Judge John Reid keeps the movie maker’s name officially off the public record. But the newly released papers make it clear that the alleged victim was Spielberg, and Perry said there was no compelling reason to keep the stalking allegations against Norman secret, as the suspect’s lawyer and the district attorney’s office had sought.

During a brief hearing, prosecutor Saunders and deputy public defender John Lawson urged the judge to stand by his earlier ruling that kept the court file on Norman’s case sealed.

Opening the file, Lawson argued, could prejudice the suspect’s right to a fair trial, because grand jury proceedings are conducted by the prosecution, with no presentation of a defense.

Saunders, meanwhile, suggested that attorneys had not been given sufficient time to review the newspapers’ motion to open the file. Further, she argued, the very nature of some stalking cases suggests that grand jury proceedings remain confidential to protect victims’ privacy rights and shield them from news media that disseminate inaccurate or titillating information.

But Perry dismissed those arguments, concluding that the likelihood of sensational media coverage was increased, not diminished, by keeping the transcripts secret.

During the prosecution’s two-day presentation to the grand jury, Deputy Dist. Atty. Jeffrey Jonas offered an alternative take on why the case was considered sensitive enough to be taken to the panel, which meets behind closed doors.

“The only person that benefits, if anybody does benefit by publicity, would be Mr. Norman, because of the very reason that he pursued this effort,” Jonas said.

The testimony of 20 witnesses, most of them Los Angeles police officers or security guards, paint a picture of Norman as a disturbed man so sexually obsessed with Spielberg that he would use any ruse to get near him--including claiming he was the filmmaker’s adopted son. And, according to the testimony by authorities, at the time of Norman’s arrest, he had a day planner that included not only details about the director and his family but also a shopping list of items, including eye masks, dog collars and chloroform, for the suspect’s alleged plan. Inside Norman’s vehicle, authorities said, they found magazine pictures of images from Spielberg’s films and two videocassettes--one of them of “E.T.”

Norman, who was convicted in 1995 of assault with a deadly weapon in a Santa Monica case, first attempted to enter Spielberg’s gated estate in a sport utility vehicle about 6 p.m. June 29 but was turned away by an off-duty police officer working as a security guard, according to testimony.

On July 11, the officer said, he again saw Norman, this time sitting in a Land Rover just outside the property. After quietly alerting police, the officer said, he spotted Norman backing his vehicle up against the front gates of the estate as if to determine how much force would be needed to open them.

Not long after, according to the officer and other witnesses, Norman fled the vehicle and ran to escape authorities. One resident testified that she spotted him, “eyes on fire,” in her backyard, holding a drapery rod over his head “like a javelin.”

After his arrest, detectives testified, Norman ranted “that the jackal was trying to get him” and blamed his actions on a three-day methamphetamine binge. While authorities saw no obvious signs of drug use, testimony indicated that two days after his arrest, Norman tested “presumptive for amphetamines.”