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| Photo courtesy of dailymail.co.uk |
Hurd was sentenced to jail time after a court hearing back in 2009 where he was found guilty of masturbating and then sending the masturbation photos to Ashanti's mother. He faced trial again back in 2014 when he violated a restraining order, posed for a picture with Ashanti's sister (who didn't know what he looked like) and continued to harass the singer with inappropriate messages. However, during the 2014 trial, one of the jurors fell ill during deliberation, and the case went to mistrial. It was tried again the following year, but the jury couldn't agree upon a verdict for the stalking charges, and it was, again, called a mistrial.
Flash forward to now: it's sweet 2016 and sweet, sweet justice is being served to a man who has harassed the singer for a little over the past decade. According to The Daily Mail, Hurd told the jury that "sending sexually explicit stuff was not a crime" and that the singer could have "simply avoided him by hitting block." During a cross examination Ashanti reportedly told Hurd, "You continuously tweeted over and over again disgusting, derogatory, disrespectful things to me after you had already gone to jail for doing the same thing. I wish you to stop. I just wish you to stop."
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| Photo courtesy of twitter.com |
Hurd allegedly refuted Ashanti's remarks stating, "You do lap dances for performances, correct? I don't have a problem with it I'm just saying..." Yes, Devar. Because Ashanti does lap dances for performances she most definitely wants your naked pictures sent to her and her mother.
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| Gif courtesy of giphy.com |
Hurd's explained rationale for his acts brings up many points that de Becker touches upon in the reading, "I Was Trying to Let Him Down Easy." As de Becker touches upon, "Unwanted pursuers may escalate their behavior to include persistent phone calls, text messages and trying to enlist family and friends of the individual they're pursuing" (de Becker, p. 201, 1997). Devar Hurd is guilty of all actions listed by de Becker, and although Ashanti, being a vocal superstar, would have never taken the time to individually contact Hurd to say "stop," Hurd explains his acts by stating the singer never explicitly told him to stop contacting her and he believed the two were "in a romantic relationship."
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| Gif courtesy of giphy.com |
Given Hurd's rationale, it's both concerning, but maybe not surprising that many celebrities face stalker harassment. With their public images and their often inability and unavailability to directly tell their pursuers to stop contacting them, stalkers may carry Hurd's similar mentality, where they believe they and the individual they're pursuing, are, in fact, in a relationship. As de Becker notes, sometimes if you're not explicit with a man, they simply won't get it. Hurd definitely didn't- not even after 13 years and a previous arrest.
I'm actually really surprised that I had no idea that this was going on, especially since Ashanti is so famous. This seems like a perfect example of how some stalker cases take years to finally be resolved with a guilty verdict. I guess I still just don't understand how proving that someone is stalking is so hard in a court of law. Sure, maybe it's not explicitly harmful to the victim, but this is obvious harassment and Ashanti had obviously taken steps in the past to show that it was unwanted attention. I could not even imagine the frustration and fear of being so relentlessly stalked by a man for over a decade to the point where he got my mom's phone number and sent vulgar pictures, took photos with my siblings, tweeted at me nonstop, or genuinely thought we were in a "romantic" relationship.
ReplyDeleteIn regards to de Beckers' argument, I find it sad that a victim of stalking may still not be getting their disinterest in their pursuer across. In my opinion, it seems as though Ashanti was pretty explicit as she has taken this man to court multiple times. Additionally, the fact that Devar would ever rationalize his pursuits by saying, "You do lap dances for performances, correct? I don't have a problem with it I'm just saying...," is absolutely ludicrous to me. Ashanti is a very talented woman and it saddens me to think that some may believe their stalkerish behavior is warranted because of the way a woman may dance or entertain.