Gibson Stalker Gets Head Check
Mel Gibson's prayer pal isn't going to jail just yet.
A Los Angeles judge has ordered Zack Sinclair, the 34-year-old drifter found guilty last week of stalking the The Passion of the Christ mastermind, to undergo a psychiatric examination before sentencing.
Lead prosecutor Deputy District Attorney Debra Archuleta says that the 90-day diagnostic evaluation given by the state Department of Correction will be used by Judge John S. Fisher as a guide in determining proper punishment.
"[Sinclair] will be evaluated, diagnosed and treated, and he will be returned to the court for sentencing on June 20," Archuleta said Friday, noting that the mental examination does not take the place of the sentence itself, nor is it a competency test. "It's a tool that's used to help in sentencing."
Sinclair, who once spent time in an Idaho state psychiatric facility, was arrested Sept. 20 after turning up unannounced at Gibson's home and church and sending "harassing," religious-themed letters to the Lethal Weapon star, who in turn obtained a restraining order against Sinclair.
The youthful-looking transient was back two weeks later, declaring he was on a mission from God to heal Gibson. At the point Sinclair was taken into custody and charged with felony stalking.
He was found guilty last week following a four-day trial, in which he acted as his own attorney but declined to mount a defense. He also passed on an opportunity to cross-examine Gibson, who took the stand to read several of the letters Sinclair sent and suggested "the young man needs help."
Sinclair now faces between 16 months and 3 years in jail. Archuleta has recommended to Fisher that Sinclair serve his time at a mental institution rather than state prison.
"We're looking for the maximum period of hospitalization, given his history," said Archuleta.
Gibson, meanwhile, did not have any immediate comment on Sinclair being sent for psychiatric evaluation. The director has been busy working on a remixed version of The Passion of the Christ titled Passion: Recut, which opened in theaters Friday.
The new version is minus some of the more blood-soaked crucifixion scenes in a play to reach those who were turned off by the gore of the original but still wanted to see it.
"What came up again and again was that a lot of people were turned away because of the brutality in the film and were afraid to watch," Gibson told the Christian Broadcasting Network. "So I thought if I softened it up a bit, I could have a wider audience."
Gibson cut six minutes of graphic violence in hopes of getting a PG-13 rating. But the MPAA decided the film was bloody enough to warrant an R, leading Gibson to release the film sans rating. That means it won't be disseminated as widely as he hoped, since many theaters have policies against screening unrated films.
Nevertheless with Easter just weeks away, the blockbuster will likely still do a fair amount of business.
Meanwhile, Gibson has two other religious-themed films in the pipeline. He's working on a big-screen adaptation of the biblical Maccabean revolt that's the basis for the Jewish holiday of Chanukah, as well as a movie about the infamous Fatima visions of Sister Lucia of Portugal, who claimed to see the Virgin Mary.
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