Another Lunatic Arrested After Stalking Jodie Foster

A man who sent threatening letters to Jodie Foster over several years was arrested yesterday for threatening to bomb the Van Nuys Airport in Los Angeles.

Michael Smegal was charged with mailing the bomb threat to the airport last December. According to an affidavit filed in the case by an FBI agent, the threat was one of over 100 identical letters referencing Foster that he mailed to various businesses, airports, and celebrities (no word on which ones). Smegal said he chose airports because of his belief that they were connected to the Screen Actors Guild. (Oooookaaaaaayyyyyy....?)

Smegal had admitted, in 2005, that he was sending anonymous letters to Foster and promised to stop. One of the letters he'd sent her in 2004 contained a prepaid cell phone and a note asking her to use it to call a specific number. When law enforcement officials called that number, they got Smegal, who identified himself by name and then used the phone to send pictures of himself and his dog. (Again, ooooookaaaaaayyyyy....? This guy is clearly COMPLETELY unhinged.) They caught him this time because the DNA on the envelope containing the Van Nuys letter matched that collected from the letters he admitted sending to Foster back in 2004. (Good going, smartypants.)

So now he's looking at ten years in prison. Which... even for me (I'm a professed prison abolitionist in my other life) seems kind of short. I mean, maybe the guy doesn't belong in some Supermax prison for a decade, given he's pretty obviously not well, but I don't know if what he's got can be fixed. It seems to me like he needs to be supervised in some EFFECTIVE way for a lot longer than 10 years. He's only 42; he's got a lot of years left before he's either no longer with us or no longer in any shape to be a real threat to anyone, know what I'm saying?

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