Erin Andrews' Stalker Sentenced to 2.5 Years
Erin Andrews
An Illinois man was sentenced to two and a half years in federal prison Monday for stalking ESPN sideline reporter Erin Andrews, secretly filming her through hotel peepholes and trying to peddle the nude footage.
Michael David Barrett, 48, pleaded guilty in December in U.S. District Court in downtown Los Angeles to one federal count of interstate stalking.
U.S. District Judge Manuel L. Real ordered Barrett to begin serving his prison sentence May 3, despite a plea from Andrews that Barrett be taken into custody immediately.
"The defendant wants to walk -- to put this all behind him," Andrews said. "I'm living public humiliation. It's my body that's on the Internet.
"He stalked me, he terrorized me -- this will never be over for me, and I don't want it to ever be over for you," she said, looking at Barrett.
"You are a sexual predator, a sexual deviant," she told Barrett, saying she lives in a state of fear and needs security at work and home. "They should lock you up and throw away the key."
Real ordered Barrett to pay $7,366 to Andrews and pay a $5,000 fine. He also said Barrett should undergo mental health treatment.
Andrews "will be suffering (from) this problem for the rest of her life," Real said.
In his plea agreement, Barrett admitted surreptitiously shooting videos of Andrews in the nude through peepholes in hotel rooms in Nashville, Tenn.; Columbus, Ohio; and Milwaukee, and posting the footage on the Internet after trying to sell it to the Los Angeles-based entertainment news Web site TMZ.com.
In court Monday, Barrett apologized.
"I have no words to adequately tell Miss Andrews how sorry I am for what I've done to her," Barrett said. "I hope that one day she will forgive me."
Barrett was arrested Oct. 2 at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport.
After the allegations came to light, investigators found the peephole had been altered in the door to a Nashville hotel room where Andrews stayed in September 2008, according to Assistant U.S. Attorney Wesley L. Hsu.
Barrett had specifically requested a room adjacent to Andrews', prosecutors said. He also registered at hotels in Columbus and Milwaukee where Andrews stayed in July and September 2008, according to a court filing.
Barrett's attorney, David K. Willingham, said his client has lost his job as an insurance salesman, as well as his fiancee, his life savings and his home since the charges were brought. He also said Barrett suffers from a "treatable" psychological problem.
Barrett has been free on $100,000 bond under conditions that include house arrest, electronic monitoring and restrictions on his use of the telephone and the Internet.
About 16 other women were "victimized ... in almost precisely the same way that he victimized" Andrews, according to a sentencing memorandum.
The names of those who were allegedly the targets of Barrett's "long- term obsession," other than Andrews, were not revealed in court papers, but prosecutors described them as "female sports reporters, as well as other television personalities."
The memo also includes a list of the titles Barrett gave to his hotel peephole videos of Andrews -- "Erin Andrews Spectacular Butt," "Erin Andrews in a Pink Thong" and "Erin go WOW!!"
The court filing notes that Andrews wanted Barrett to pay her about $335,000 in restitution.
The stalking has had a "devastating impact on ... Andrews' emotional state, and the emotional distress caused to her and her family cannot be overstated. She has lived in fear for her physical safety," Hsu wrote in the memo.
Andrews' attorney, Marshall Grossman, told Real that Barrett had destroyed Andrews' sense of "self-security."
"His behavior forced Erin into a state of privacy for the past eight months," he said. "Every day there is another Web site that has the video and is selling it."
Andrews will be competing on the upcoming season of ABC's "Dancing with the Stars."
