Drifter Gets 10 Years for Stalking Madonna
A drifter who stalked pop singer Madonna, scaled the fence surrounding her home and threatened to slit her throat was sentenced in Los Angeles on Friday to 10 years in prison.
Robert Dewey Hoskins, 38, showed little emotion as Superior Court Judge Jacqueline Connor imposed the sentence. The judge rejected a plea that Hoskins’ apparent mental illness and troubled past merited leniency.
“It doesn’t decrease the danger, it appears to increase the danger,” the judge said.
Connor agreed with prosecutors, who recommended that Hoskins serve his time in a prison with psychiatric services. The judge also fined Hoskins $200, which she said he can work off in prison.
Hoskins was convicted Jan. 8 of stalking and making terrorist threats against Madonna and two employees last year.
Prosecutors said Hoskins scaled the walls of Madonna’s 25,000-square-foot Hollywood Hills estate in April and again in May and told her assistant he would either marry her or slash her throat from ear to ear. A bodyguard shot and wounded Hoskins the second time he climbed the wall.
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