11 February 2016
Newsdesk
Gwyneth Paltrow's alleged stalker testified that he had just wanted the actress to know he was available to marry if she wanted to on Thursday (11Feb16).
Dante Soiu is reported to have been harassing Paltrow for 17 years, but he was found not guilty by reason of insanity in 2000, after allegedly bombarding her with sexually explicit messages and unwanted gifts.
He spent a number of years in a mental institution and was taken into custody again last year (15) after reaching out to the mother-of-two once more.
However as he appeared in court on Thursday (11Feb16), Soiu told the jury that the 66 messages and packages he sent Paltrow between 2009 and 2015 were to show her that he bore no grudge about the previous case leading to him being institutionalised, reports The Associated Press.
He added that he wanted to propose the idea of marriage to Oscar-winner Paltrow. When Deputy District Attorney Wendy Segall asked Soiu why Paltrow would consider marrying him when he had sent so many messages and she had testified against him, he replied: "I was trying to show I had changed and I had become a different person. I wanted to show a new face towards her.
"I wanted her to say flat out, ‘I don’t want to marry you.' That way I would have a definite response from her.”
None of the new messages that Soiu sent to Paltrow contained any of the pornographic material the ones before his first arrest did. He told the court that this was because he had been addicted to pornography at the time of his first arrest, but is now on medication for the alleged addiction and believes he is healed.
The gifts Soiu sent Paltrow included a pair of earrings for Christmas in 2009, a Weight Watchers cookbook, several religious books and some secondhand clothing.
One of his message disturbed the actress when it described her "bowing to death", but Soiu told the jury he had not been referring to physical death, but spiritual death.
Paltrow came face to face with the suspect in Los Angeles Superior Court on Monday (08Feb16), when she was called to describe how she felt about his unsolicited correspondence on the first day of his new trial.
During her hour-long testimony, the 43-year-old admitted she had been left troubled by many of his letters.
"I felt very upset by it," Paltrow said. "This has been a very long and very traumatic experience already."
Soiu's attorney, Lynda Westlund, admits her client did send letters to Paltrow, but insists he is a Christian who never included anything explicit in the messages, which included forwarded notes he had also sent to U.S. President Barack Obama and fellow actress Angelina Jolie, who is now married to Paltrow's ex-fiance, Brad Pitt.
Soiu, from Columbus, Ohio, has pleaded not guilty to the new charges.