Key Advice on Stalkers: Don’t Underestimate Their Tenacity

KNBC-TV news anchor Kelly Mack’s 12-year ordeal with an obsessed fan began as innocent flattery, with gushing letters and requests for autographed photos.

Over time, however, the reported delusions of one man--and the incessant phone calls, faxes, gifts and letters by the thousands--altered Mack’s life and instilled in her a chronic sense of fear.

“I shake when I think about this,” she said Saturday, speaking to about 100 attorneys and law enforcement authorities at an all-day seminar at the Beverly Hills Hotel.

Most disturbing, she said, is that her two young daughters know that the armed guard stationed for weeks at their front door was there to keep a stalker at bay.

Gerald Bertolini, 49, was arrested on suspicion of felony stalking in May and awaits trial. If convicted he could face four years in prison.

“I’ve done everything I can, and I still feel vulnerable,” Mack said. “I worry: When he gets out of jail, will he be even more angry?”

Mack’s fears are shared by a select group of entertainers, artists, politicians and executives whose careers rely on close interaction with the public or on maintaining the support of their fans.

Over the years, Los Angeles, a place often heralded for inventing celebrity, has become home to the world’s experts in protecting the famous from stalkers.

In the last decade, Los Angeles area attorneys and investigators have been instrumental in shaping state and federal anti-stalking laws.

On Saturday, some of these experts came together to share their wisdom with local attorneys, many of whom represent high-profile clients.

More than a dozen lecturers spoke on the topic, but each shared a similar message: Don’t underestimate the tenacity of a stalker.

All Mack’s attempts to keep her stalker away--private security guards, alternating her routine, regular visits from police, elaborate home security--nearly failed.

Five months ago, the accused stalker from Alpharetta, Ga., was arrested a quarter-mile from Mack’s Burbank office after apparently driving cross-country to talk to her.

Ten years ago, Bertolini’s alleged crime might have warranted little more than a night in jail for violating a restraining order, said Rep. Edward R. Royce (R-Fullerton), one of the authors of California’s original anti-stalking law.

Since the state Legislature passed the nation’s first anti-stalker statute, however, the law has been strengthened to include the stalking of a victim’s family, to allow the issuance of emergency restraining orders and to encompass Internet stalking. Starting Jan. 1, convicted felony stalkers will face five years in prison as opposed to the four-year sentence currently in place.

State law defines a stalker as anyone who “willfully, maliciously and repeatedly follows or harasses another person, and who makes a credible threat with the intent to place that person in fear for their safety or the safety of their immediate family.”

Experts at Saturday’s seminar warned that stalkers who suffer delusions or extreme fanaticism rarely relinquish their obsessions and often resume their behavior after their release.

Bertolini, for instance, has written to Mack that the two are “ordained by God to create the second coming of Christ,” she said.

“The most typical reason for stalking is rage,” said Los Angeles County Deputy Dist. Atty. Rhonda B. Saunders, who won the convictions of the stalkers of Madonna and Steven Spielberg. “It’s rage because of rejection. . . . They refuse to accept responsibility. They believe the victim has set them up; the police have set them up.”

The stalking case that woke up law enforcement to the problem was that of 21-year-old actress Rebecca Schaeffer, co-star of the television show “My Sister Sam,” who opened her door to a killer in July 1989. She was shot to death on her doorstep by Robert Bardo, an obsessed fan who is serving a life term for the murder.

Although studio security guards, Schaeffer’s agent and producers all knew that Bardo had been sending threatening letters to the actress for months, no one told Schaeffer.

Now attorneys and police advise celebrity managers to keep clients informed of any threats or confrontational behavior from fans. Mack said she has warned her children’s teachers, her neighbors and her co-workers about her stalker in the hopes that she and her family won’t be fighting his threats alone. “They all have the knowledge that he’s out there,” she said.