Gibson Stalker Opts For A Self-Defense During Trial
The man arrested for allegedly stalking actor/director Mel Gibson has decided to proceed in his trial without the aid of a legal counsel.
34-year-old Idaho native Zack Sinclair showed up lawyer-less to a Van Nuys courtroom last Monday to began the jury selection process.
"Would it put anyone in a kind of bind being here? Financially or in their relationships?" asked Sinclair (whose father, mother, and stepmother were also present) to an unresponsive jury.
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"Anyone who really wants to be here?" Sinclair continued, again to no response. "I don't blame you," he added.
Jurors cut by the prosecution included those who felt they couldn’t take Sinclair seriously in his self-defense, those who expressed sympathy for Gibson after having viewed “The Passion,” as well as those who voiced their dislike of the amount of power celebrities hold.
Sinclair, who previously spent nearly two years in jail in Idaho for stalking a mentally-ill woman, was initially arrested last September for visiting Gibson’s Malibu home and pressing the actor/director to pray with him – a task that Sinclair believes he is being “told by God” to do, as relayed by deputy district attorney Debra Archuleta to the jury at the opening of the trial.
A second arrest came a month later after Sinclair violated a restraining order Gibson had filed against him.
According to prosecutors, Sinclair is also behind letters sent to the Gibson family that cite biblical verses, praise the director's film "The Passion of the Christ" and detail prayers said for Gibson. Sinclair has been held on $500,000 bail.
Gibson will take the witness stand on Thursday, March 3. If found guilty, Sinclair faces up to three years in jail.
