Nagel-Momberger, his poor children, Wonder Woman
I couldn’t even venture a guess as to how many crime stories I’ve written over the years. Well into the thousands, I’d venture to guess. (See what I did there?)
Anyway, this whole Charles Nagle (or Nagel, as the feds believe it to be) stalking Eames from Law & Order Criminal Intent offers an insight into an allegedly warped mind that I hadn’t seen too often.
Touched is the best word I can use to describe him. (And his family, who I saw in court today as the feds co-opted local charges in Philly and Brooklyn to file interstate stalking charges.)
Here’s a draft of the piece I wrote for Wednesday’s Metro (along with a sidebar excerpting from a quite disturbing complaint released by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Brooklyn on Tuesday morning.) It involves him wanting to add her to his Christmas card list, chasing after her car on the set, writing songs in her honor, sending letters to her ex-husband soliciting help for an introduction, etc. (If I knew how to link to PDFs, I’d link to the 10-pager that’s sitting on my desk at work. I feel bad you can’t see for yourself.)
There was a casting problem on the set of “Charles Nagle’s Extradition Hearing” yesterday. The lawyers were there. So were the judge, reporters, FBI agents and the suspect’s wife and daughters HarleyQuinn and Bat Girl, who brought a pair of pajama-clad stuffed animals. Yet, the star was nowhere to be found.
That unexpected plot twist came after Philadelphia dropped its fugitive from justice charge, based on Nagle’s local March arrest on aggravated harassment and stalking charges out of Brooklyn related to his unrequited love for former Law & Order star Kathryn Erbe. Those were also dropped before Nagle was taken away by federal agents to face interstate-stalking charges just-unsealed in U.S. District Court in Brooklyn.
The indictment cited Nagle’s “intent to harass and cause substantial emotional distress,” detailing emails, set visits and a seven-page handwritten letter Nagle sent to Erbe and her ex-husband’s home. Defense attorney Robert Datner said his client’s alleged conduct was “not stalking” since the public was invited to the sets on which Nagle had pictures taken with Erbe, and that she had to “accept the (e-mail) communication” he’d sent.
“This was a perfect storm that mixed an eccentric man with a hypersensitive public figure. That will always get a high level of prosecutorial attention,” Datner said, as Nagle’s tearful wife led her daughters from the building.
If convicted, Nagle – who had four aliases, including three female names – could spend five years in prison, said Robert Cardoza, spokesman for the U.S. Attorney’s office.
Sidebar …
Details from the complaint unsealed in Brooklyn:
July 2008: “Chaz Rose” posted a MySpace message that he was upset Erbe hadn’t responded to his letters which was “causing him to become angry.”
April 2009: a seven-page handwritten letter read, “I know you have to be on your guard. I’m glad you are, but you don’t have to be with me. … I pray to GOD you will talk to me and end my heartache.”
March 4: he sent a message to Erbe’s daughter from a Facebook account for “Cindy Momberger.” It stated that Chaz Rose was a “hopeless romantic who wrote songs over her … not some dangerous stalker.” When her daughter de-activated the account, Momberger’s picture was changed to the daughter’s with a “hand-drawn cockroach on her face and the phrase ‘I’m ugly’ handwritten in a bubble next to her mouth.” Earlier, Momberger corresponded with Erbe’s brother, whose picture was changed to include “a hand-drawn penis superimposed on it.”
See what I mean? Here’s a cut-and-pasted portion of the US Attorney’s filing …
In or about April 2009, the defendant sent a seven-page, handwritten letter to the Victim at the Production Office. The letter was in an envelope bearing a return address for “ChazRose” at an address known to be the defendant’s home (the“Defendant’s Home Address”).
That address is also written in theletter, after the phrase, “Please Contact Me.” In the letter,the defendant wrote, among other things, the following [sicthroughout]:
a. “When we met in person I was too shy to speak.”
b. “When I see your pictures, I am looking at a warm, understanding lady that has a heart and I am absolutely spellbound by your beauty, your so expressive, charming, adorable & sexy and your aged to perfection.”
c. “I know you have to be on your guard, I’m glad you are, but you don’t have to be with me.”
d. “Please, I am begging and pleading with you towrite me back, email or call to put my mind at ease and give my heart a rest from racing, let me know everything’s alright.”
e. “I pray to GOD you will talk to me and end myheartache. It’s only harmless communication. I am not trying toinvade your privacy. I am a father and entertainer as well. I just want to be friends with you, I’m not after anything else. Honest!”
f. “[Another person was] saying I was a stalker simply because mentioned how I’d like to meet you while filminglike so many fans have and how I wanted to find your address torequest an autograph and add you to my christmas card list that’s all!”