Obsessed Fan Gets 2 Years for Threats to Pop Singer

A New York man who was obsessed with pop singer Janet Jackson and believed he was married to her was sentenced Monday to two years in prison on one count of mailing a threatening communication.

Frank Paul Jones, 34, initially was charged with four counts of sending threatening letters, including two to Jackson, one to her boyfriend, Rene Elizondo, and another to director John Singleton, who worked with her on the soon-to-be-released film “Poetic Justice.”

Jones pleaded guilty to one count involving a threat to Elizondo, said Assistant U.S. Atty. Gregory Jessner. Jones was charged last summer, but found incompetent to stand trial. He was treated in a federal correctional institution in North Carolina until doctors determined that he had recovered enough to return to court, Jessner said.

During his sentencing, Jones said he had suffered a nervous breakdown, but that he could control his condition with medication. “I realize I made a lot of mistakes, and as a result of the mistakes I made, I committed a crime,” Jones said. “I can assure the court it will never happen again. I realize I’m mentally ill and I’m taking medicine that is good for me.”

U.S. District Judge A. Andrew Hauk, who recommended that Jones be incarcerated where he could continue to get treatment, read a portion of a letter in which Jones wrote, “Well, Janet, you have reason to fear. . . .”

Hauk rejected a request by Deputy Federald Public Defender Myra Sun for a lighter sentence. He said Jones went to the Jackson family compound in Encino at one point.

But Sun said there is “no evidence he intended to carry out the threat. He thought he was married to Janet Jackson and he went to the house to find out if it was true.”

She called her client “harmless” and said the situation was “blown out of proportion.”