Big-Time Cusack Fan Nabbed for Stalking

Woman legally barred from approaching actor arrested near his Malibu home, charged with stalking, petty theft

By Natalie Finn Apr 01, 2008 3:58 AMTags

Call it the Dobler effect.  

A woman who is prohibited from coming within 500 feet of John Cusack was arrested Sunday on suspicion of stalking after police picked her up near the actor's Malibu home, according to the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department. 

Sheriff's spokesman Officer Steve Whitmore said deputies were called to the 24000 block of Malibu Road at about 7 p.m. by a cabbie who said a fare was refusing to pay for her ride into the area. Cusack himself then flagged the officers down and said he recognized the woman in the taxi as the one whom he accused of showing "unusual interest" in him. 

He said he did not think she had set foot on his property that day. 

Emily Leatherman, who has been identified as an L.A.-area transient, was also booked on charges of violating a restraining order and petty theft. Whitmore did not specify, but he said there was additional evidence recovered that led to her arrest, as well. 

She is currently in custody at the Malibu-Lost Hills Station in lieu of $150,000 bail. 

A rep for Cusack hasn't yet commented on the incident. 

The 41-year-old actor obtained a three-year restraining order against Leatherman in July 2006 after complaining she had been stalking him for 18 months—throwing weighted-down love letters over his fence, threatening to harm herself if he didn't respond and otherwise engaging in unwelcome attempts at communication. 

In court documents, Cusack stated that the now 33-year-old woman regularly showed up at his home, office and places of business and had rerouted her mail to be delivered to his address. 

Leatherman maintains she only sent two letters to the Say Anything star, saying he was one of many stars she tried to contact to shed light on her hard-up circumstances and supposedly tragic past. In turn, she filed for her own order of protection against Cusack, claiming he posed some sort of threat to her

Cusack, a theatrical triple threat last year in 1408, Grace Is Gone and Martian Child, will be heard from next (literally) in the animated Igor, in which he voices the hunchbacked title assistant. The family-friendly flick is slated for a Sept. 19 release.