She may be doing her best to dodge questions concerning one man in her life, but it looks like Uma Thurman will be forced to talk about another.
A Manhattan judge on Tuesday set a Mar. 11 trial start date to determine whether Thurman's most unabashed devotee can in fact be classified as a stalker, a trial in which the attorney for the former psychiatric patient said the actress would be called to testify.
On the defensive is 36-year-old Jack Jordan, who was arrested outside Thurman's Greenwich Village home last October on charges of misdemeanor stalking and harassment and who is accused of stalking the Kill Bill star over a period of two years.
Jordan's attorney, George Vomvolakis, not only said in court Tuesday that he would be prepared for trial next month but seemingly gave a preview into his defense.
"He was just a romantic, pursuing the woman he loves," Vomvolakis said of his client's unrelenting one-sided courtship of Thurman. "There was no attempt to harass, annoy, threaten, scare—none of that."
Among Jordan's more aggressive lovelorn overtures, which Vomvolakis apparently categorizes as nothing more than harmless wooing, is a letter, hand-delivered to the actress' home, in which the 36-year-old threatened to kill himself if he saw Thurman with another man.
Jordan first made unwanted contact with Thurman in November 2005, when he attempted to enter her trailer as she wason location filming in Manhattan. Jordan, who was enrolled in California's Mills College at the time of his arrest last year, said then that he had driven cross-country to see the star. After the initial incident, his family had him involuntarily committed to a psychiatric ward.
In August and September 2006 he sent a series of repeat and unreciprocated emails to both the actress and her family, and in August 2007 he allegedly appeared at the actress' home three to four times a week. It was during one of these stops that he delivered the suicide threat.
The letter initially resulted in an additional charge of felony coercion being lobbed against the man, though last month New York State Supreme Court Justice Gregory Carro dismissed the latter charge, agreeing with the defense that while Jordan's letter was an attempt to limit Thurman's personal freedom, it was not coercion.
"If you would like to kill yourself, it is not chargeable," Carro said.
In December, Jordan rejected a plea deal that would have seen him copping to the two remaining misdemeanor charges and avoiding jail by entering a mental health facility. Jordan instead has pleaded not guilty to all counts. He is currently free on $10,000 bail and living at his family's Massachusetts home. Per the terms of his release, he is prohibited from contacting Thurman or any members of her family.