Stalker ordered to stay 1,000 feet from Kournikova
A homeless man accused of stalking tennis star Anna Kournikova has been ordered to permanently stay at least 1,000 feet away from her if he gets out of jail.
William Lepeska, who has been held in a Miami psychiatric unit, faces up to 30 years in prison if convicted of two counts assaulting police officers, resisting arrest and burglary.
He also faces charges of stalking, indecent exposure and criminal mischief.
Lepeska said he switched his love to Kournikova after being snubbed by Spice Girl Melanie Brown.
The 40-year-old, who once stabbed a sleeping college student, admitted swimming nude across Biscayne Bay, bound for Kournikova’s £2.5m (€3.6m) estate, last month.
He was arrested when he turned up on the pool deck at the wrong house and started yelling, “Anna! Save me!”
Kournikova testified: “I was absolutely shocked and fearful, and I was very much concerned for my safety.
“It was very frightening and scary and just knowing there is someone out there who’s obsessive.”
She said she has hired bodyguards for the first time and added security at her home since Lepeska’s arrest.
The 23-year-old Russian athlete – known more for her looks than her play on the court – sought civil restraining order after Lepeska sent her six sexually explicit letters plus e-mails to her website since August.
In one letter, Lepeska explained that if they “were lovers we would have no need for other people, food or water”, according to court papers.
Lepeska served a Wisconsin prison term for stabbing a man sleeping in a university student union coffee-house and telling police he was “a slave to an evil that he could not escape” in 1995.
Before court convened, Lepeska said he was in love with Spice Girl Melanie Brown for five years and repeatedly wrote her, “but finally I said the heck with her, moving on to greener pastures”.
Lepeska acknowledged past mental illness at the hearing, where he acted as his own lawyer.
“I thought Anna possibly had some sincere regard for me,” he said. “I had all sorts of delusional assumptions about Anna.”
When the judge concluded Lepeska showed “stalking behaviour”, he interrupted to say: “Proper courting behaviour.”
After he was told contact with Kournikova was not allowed, Lepeska lashed out at the judge and her “Mafia accent”.
He said he may pursue an insanity defence in his criminal case.
