Trial Starts in Spielberg Stalker Case

Facing a charge that could bring him a virtual life sentence in state prison, Jonathan F. Norman went on trial Thursday on one felony count of stalking film director Steven Spielberg.

“The evidence will show . . . the defendant was not going to give up,” Deputy Dist. Atty. Rhonda Saunders told the jury as opening arguments began in Santa Monica Superior Court.

Indeed, the prosecutor said, the 31-year-old confessed felon was so determined to carry out his sexual assault of Spielberg that he went to the director’s gated estate in Pacific Palisades at least four times last June and July before being arrested as he attempted to elude private security officers who were called about a neighborhood prowler. When arrested, Saunders said, Norman was found with what she described as a “rape kit”--duct tape, a box cutter and handcuffs.

But as his client sat quietly, sometimes scribbling on a note pad, deputy public defender John C. Lawson II portrayed Norman as a fanatical follower of Spielberg whose sexual fantasies, however bizarre, were never directly conveyed to the director.

“As far as I know, our legislators have not made it illegal to be weird, to have strange thoughts, to have strange fantasies,” Lawson told the courtroom of Judge Steven C. Suzukawa.

“Stalking,” he added “is not a crime about thoughts.”

Spielberg, who is expected to testify at Norman’s trial, was with his family in Ireland when the defendant was arrested outside the director’s home July 11. During his appearance before the grand jury, however, Spielberg said his whereabouts at the time of Norman’s arrest did not ease his fear about the safety of himself and his family.

“I really felt my life was in danger,” Spielberg told the county grand jury before it indicted Norman, who remains in custody in lieu of $1 million bail.

Specifically, authorities charge, Norman first attempted to enter Spielberg’s property June 29 driving a sport utility vehicle. But he was turned away about 6 p.m. by off-duty Los Angeles Police Det. Steve Lopez, who has worked for 10 years for a private security company that guards Spielberg’s residence.

Lopez, who was the first witness called Thursday, also was one of about 20 people summoned before the grand jury, most of them police officers or private security guards.

Their testimony, contained in a 209-page transcript of the grand jury proceedings, depicts Norman as a sexually obsessed stalker who used a variety of stories to try to gain access to Spielberg, including telling others that he was the director’s adopted son.

On July 11, Lopez testified, he again saw Norman just outside the property. This time, however, Norman was driving a blue Land Rover that was almost identical in color and style to one driven by Spielberg’s wife, actress Kate Capshaw, according to authorities.

Spotting Norman outside the property, the officer said he first called police and then watched as Norman backed the large vehicle up against the huge front gates of Spielberg’s residence as if to find out how much force would be needed to break through them.

Moments later, according to a security videotape shown Thursday to the jury, Norman left the area.

Later, authorities allege, he abandoned the vehicle and ran through the neighborhood in an unsuccessful attempt to escape. One resident told the grand jury she saw Norman in her backyard, his “eyes on fire.” At the time, she testified, he also was holding a drapery rod over his head “like a javelin.”

During his opening remarks, however, defense attorney Lawson noted that authorities--for all their purported concerns about Norman--detained and released him three times before he was finally held in custody pending the grand jury proceedings.

“If he is stalking, why wasn’t he arrested for stalking?” Lawson asked rhetorically.

Because he pleaded guilty three years ago in Santa Monica to two counts of assault with a deadly weapon, Norman could be sentenced to 25 years to life if the district attorney’s office wins a conviction in this case and decides to treat it as a “third strike” felony. That decision will await a verdict, the district attorney’s office has said.