Uma Thurman 'freaked out' by accused stalker

NEW YORK (AP) - May 2, 2008

It bore a drawing of an open grave, a headstone and a man standing on the edge of a razor blade. A spiral of random words - the actress read some aloud - referred to "chocolate, mouth, soft, kissing" and declared, "My hands should be on your body at all times."

"I was completely freaked out," Thurman testified Thursday at Jack Jordan's trial. "It was almost like a nightmare; it was scary."

Jordan occasionally drummed lightly on the table with his fingers during the "Pulp Fiction" actress' testimony, rarely looking in her direction. Defense lawyer George Vomvolakis said he had instructed Jordan not to stare at Thurman while she testified "because we don't want to make her uncomfortable."

Jordan, on trial in Manhattan state court, faces up to a year in prison if convicted of stalking and aggravated harassment.

The actress said Jordan had tried unsuccessfully to get into her trailer while she was shooting the movie "My Super Ex-Girlfriend" in lower Manhattan's SoHo area in November 2005. He tried a second time after mingling with some movie extras. When an assistant intervened, Jordan asked him to give Thurman the illustrated card.

Bits of paper fluttered out when she opened the religious confirmation card, Thurman testified. One of the pieces of paper had a picture of a bride with her head torn off.

Vomvolakis said he believed Thurman's demeanor during her testimony was "a little overdone and exaggerated. I'm not saying she's acting, but reactions are unreasonable."

Vomvolakis says Jordan never would have hurt Thurman because he loves her. The attorney says his client has been diagnosed as schizophrenic and bipolar and should be in psychiatric treatment, not jail.

Thurman, 38, said that after getting the card, she called her parents and her brother, who testified earlier this week. She said they already knew about Jordan but hadn't wanted to tell her about the calls and e-mails they had received from him because they didn't want to scare her.

Thurman said she read some of the e-mails quickly and noted they made references to her ex-husband and - more frighteningly - her children.

One e-mail said, "You have no children," and called her children, ages 6 and 9, an "illusion." The same e-mail referred to the biblical story of God ordering Abraham to kill his son Isaac but then rescinding the command.

"I don't think any mother or parent would want a stranger to fixate on their children, and fixate on them not existing," she said. "That was terrifying to me."

The actress said she received a letter from Jordan in November 2005 telling her he had been involuntarily committed to a Rockville, Md., mental hospital because of her, and asking her to intervene to help him get out.

Thurman said that was the last she heard of Jordan until August 2007, when she was on vacation in the Bahamas.

She said she "felt physically nauseous" when her personal assistant, Samara Koffler, called her from New York to say a man named Jack Jordan had come to her front door in Greenwich Village, was ringing the doorbell and refused to leave until Koffler told him she was calling police.