Hearing Monday in Palin stalker case

Psychiatrist: Christy's sense of grandiosity "could turn somewhat paranoid."
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A court magistrate will consider a request by Sarah Palin for a six month extension of the restraining order against a 19-year-old who is accused of stalking her:

Palin's father, Chuck Heath, and her friend, Kristan Cole, are also seeking long-term protective orders against Christy's parents, Craig and Karen Christy.

Craig Christy, also of Pennsylvania, is accused of barraging Palin's parents with harassing telephone messages, including 26 in one day, and contacting Cole's children on Facebook. Cole's request for a protective order against Karen Christy was denied last month.

Palin and Cole obtained original restraining orders against Shawn Christy last year, stating in court documents that he threatened them, sent a receipt for a gun purchase and said he was buying a one-way ticket to Alaska. This year, Shawn Christy flew to Alaska on Palin's February birthday, spending just one day in Anchorage - about 40 miles from Palin's hometown of Wasilla - before returning to Pennsylvania. The visit was monitored by authorities.

"When you combine, you know, all the evidence that includes the parents' threats, including threats that they're not going to end this hellish game until we pony up hundreds of thousands of dollars - that's extortion, I believe - you combine all those pieces of evidence and any reasonable person would fear for their safety, for their family's safety," Palin testified at a recent hearing. "Especially when Shawn Christy traveled to Alaska, I believe just to prove that he had the means and the ways to travel to Alaska from the East Coast."

Magistrate Jonathan Lack issued temporary restraining orders against the Christys last month and set Monday's court date to deal with the long-term orders.

[More]

- JP

Warner Todd Huston: Left Decries Palin’s Stalker… Or Not

"I'm waiting for that sincere national dialog from the left"
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Last month, Shawn Christy, the troubled young man who has a history of stalking Gov. Palin, flew from Pennsylvania to Anchorage, Alaska just to show that no restraining order is going to cramp his style. Warner Todd Huston comments on the stalker turning up only 50 miles from the Palin home in Alaska:

He has been talking about "tracking her down" at book signings, falsely claimed he's had a sexual relationship with her, and has sent the Palins copies of receipts of his gun purchases. So, now I am waiting for the leftists that immediately began to blame the shooting on Gabrielle Giffords on "violent right-wing rhetoric" to point to the violent left-wing rhetoric that would cause a teenager to buy guns (and send the receipt to Palin), send threatening emails, make threatening phone calls, call himself Palin's "magic enemy," and ultimately set out to threaten her at her home...

[...]

I'm waiting for that sincere national dialog from the left. Waaaaaiting….

Naturally, we have to turn to foreign press to hear the story as the US press didn't make much noise about the stalker Shawn Christy, 19, from Pennsylvania.

Christy had spent months emailing Palin's offices with vague threats as well as calling them on the phone. It got to the point where Palin and Palin family friend friend Kristan Cole took out a restraining order against Shawn "your magic enemy" Christy. The Palins were alarmed early in February when Christy took a flight to Anchorage, Alaska for an odd 30-hour visit.

[...]

He sounds dangerous, doesn't he? He sounds like a nut, doesn't he?

So where is the left proclaiming that the reason for his unhinged behavior is violent left-wing rhetoric? Where is your “New Tone” now?

[More]

- JP

Palin stalker Shawn Christy NOT collared by the FBI (Updated)

“We sleep with the guns”
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According to the UK's Daily Mail, Shawn Christy, the 19 year old Pennsylvanian who admitted last October to stalking Sarah Palin, has been arrested by the FBI in Alaska. Christy had bombarded Gov. Palin with threatening letters and even sent her copies of receipts for a gun he bought and told her to watch his back. The teenager's threats were considered serious enough by an Alaska Judge to issue restraining orders against Christie in October.

Her family have revealed that Christy was held in Anchorage, just 50 miles from her home in Wasilla. FBI officers have ordered him to return to Pennsylvania, 3,500 miles away.

He is said to have bombarded her with letters, writing about his “evil” and signing off “your magic enemy”. Ms Palin’s dad, Chuck Heath, 72, said: “She has got security when she goes places but here in Wasilla she doesn’t have that great security other than family and friends.

“Not only has Sarah been threatened, but her whole family.

“We sleep with the guns.” In the interview to be aired on BBC2’s Newsnight today, Mr Heath said Christy was held last month.

He had reportedly said he planned to travel to Wasilla to get the restraining order dismissed.

Now Sarah Palin’s parents have talked about the controversy for the first time. Her mother Sally Heath told Newsnight that she was concerned for her daughter's safety and that of the Palin children.

Update: Eric Gonzalez, a spokesman for the FBI's Anchorage field office, denies the Daily Mail story, saying the Bureau "has not arrested or had any contact with Mr. Christy."

- JP

Frontiersman: Restraining order issued against Palin, Cole stalker

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From the Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman:

An Anchorage judge issued restraining orders yesterday against Shawn R. Christy on behalf of Wasilla residents Kristan Cole and former Gov. Sarah Palin, according to court documents.

Cole said she became concerned about Christy’s letters and e-mails 15 or 16 months ago, but it ended up in court yesterday after the man called her to say he was in Alaska.

“When someone sends you proof that they’ve purchased weapons. Proof that they know where you live. And said that they are looking into purchasing a one-way plane ticket to Alaska and then calls from a cell phone with a 907 number, it’s over the line and we need protecting.”

Wasilla Police Department also helped the two families put together a safety plan, she said.

(More)

Developing...

- JP

Quote of the Day (May 27, 2010)

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Michelle Malkin:

"Todd Palin for border czar!"

- JP

Even Ruth Marcus says McGinness has gone too far

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Ruth Marcus is the least likely of all possible Sarah Palin defenders. Yet even the Washington Post columnist, who attacks Gov. Palin on a regular basis, writes that Joe McGinness' unhealthy obsession with Gov. Palin has gone too far:

McGinniss’s choice of venue is outrageously, unnecessarily intrusive. There is -- there used to be and should be, anyway -- a difference between reporting and stalking, serious journalists and papparazzi. Not that I’d want to make my living chasing celebrities, but the papparazzi, at least, have an excuse: they have to stick their cameras in people’s faces to do their jobs. McGinniss and Marcus don’t. People, politicians included, deserve a zone of privacy, literal as well as metaphysical.

Slate’s Jack Shafer says he has “no problems, ethically or morally, with him getting as close to his subject as possible” and puts McGinniss’s behavior within a “long journalistic tradition of wearing sources and subjects down until they surrender.” His examples include “knocking on the door of a grieving family to ask them, "How do you feel?” and “frequenting a subject’s favorite bar, place of worship, and subway stop until he cracks.”

I’ve had to do that knocking -- not easy -- but I was taught not to besiege grieving families. If that’s changed, too bad on us, but there are remedies against such harassment. Going to a public place in pursuit of a source is different from essentially spying on the source in her private domain.

[...]

In a statement, McGinniss’s publisher promised that he “will be highly respectful of his subject’s privacy as he investigates her public activities. Really? So respectful of her privacy that he invaded it? Plow through all the papers, interview all the sources you want. But seizing the opportunity to live next door is creepy.

Joe, if you're bashing Sarah Palin, and you've lost Ruth Marcus, you've lost your argument. Go back to your real home in Massachusetts, finish your smear job of a book and leave this family alone.

- JP

Joe McGinness to ABC News: "Get off my property!"

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ABC News discovers that stalker Joe McGinness is also a hypocrite:

McGinniss, who is being accused of invading the Palins' privacy, himself claimed that his was being invaded when ABC News knocked at his door to get a comment.

"Get off, you're trespassing," McGinniss said through his window. "I am going to have to call the Wasilla police. Get off my property, now, I am going to put in the call."

It's not your property, Joe. You're just renting.

This little stunt of yours was a lot of fun for you and your leftist fellow travelers when you thought you could intimidate Gov. Palin and her family wasn't it? But when the shoe went on the other foot, you sure lost your cool fast! That's the thing with "progressives." They love to dish it out, but they can't take it.

- JP

How to build an anti-stalker fence in just one day

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Now if only the feds would complete that border fence they promised over a year ago to build...

h/t: GretaWire

- JP

Gov. Palin talks about her stalker on Hannity's radio program

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Courtesy of Palin TV

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- JP