Actress, guilty of stalking Alec Baldwin, gets six-month term

By James McKinley, New York Times News Service

Thursday, Nov. 14, 2013 | 5:20 p.m.

NEW YORK — After a week of courtroom drama, featuring a star turn from Alec Baldwin and tearful histrionics from a woman accused of stalking him, it was a judge who had the last and defining word Thursday: guilty on all charges.

Judge Robert Mandelbaum said that the woman, Genevieve Sabourin, 41, had demonstrated “a complete lack of respect for the legal system” and had waged a “relentless and escalating campaign” to annoy and harass Baldwin and his wife.

“The rules of civil society apply to you as to everyone else,” he said.

He sentenced her to six months in jail, the maximum allowed, on top of a month he had given her earlier this week for contempt of court.

Sabourin, a freelance film publicist and actress from Quebec who said she had had a tryst with Baldwin three years ago, was unrepentant when the judge asked whether she had anything to say before sentencing.

“I haven’t done anything wrong,” she said. “That’s what I have to say. You are doing a mistake right now.”

Still, the judge took only five minutes before deciding that Sabourin was guilty of several misdemeanors: two counts of stalking, and one count each of harassment and attempted aggravated harassment.

Sabourin sobbed quietly as he delivered the verdict. She was also convicted of violating an order of protection, issued in May 2012, for Baldwin and his wife by sending threatening messages on Twitter to his wife.

The judge’s decision ended a theatrical trial in Criminal Court in Manhattan during which Baldwin took the stand to describe what he called a “nightmarish” ordeal with an obsessed stalker. Sabourin, in turn, repeatedly disrupted the proceedings with outbursts, calling Baldwin a liar in open court and yelling vulgar insults at his wife, Hilaria Thomas Baldwin.

Before the trial, Sabourin had rejected a plea bargain with the Manhattan district attorney’s office that would have kept her out of jail. Under that arrangement, the charges would have been dismissed as long as she obeyed a court order to stay away from the Baldwins and underwent counseling, her lawyer said.

Sabourin’s lawyer, Todd Spodek, argued in his summation that Sabourin had a right to a face-to-face explanation from Baldwin for his treatment of her.

“Her whole purpose was to get closure,” he said. “She wanted to find out what was the status of this relationship.”