Comments on: Dead body found in car outside Paula Abdul’s house was possible stalker

By: DVMartinEsq

DVMartinEsq — Sun, 14 Dec 2008 06:29:30 +0000

January is National Stalking Awareness Month. See http://www.stalkingawarenessmonth.org. From some of the comments I have read about the Paula/Idol controversy, it is very clear that we need to devote a great deal of attention to stalking awareness. 78% of stalking victims are women and 87% of stalkers are men. 8% of all women in this country are stalked. 54% of female murder victims reported their stalkers to the police before they were killed by their stalkers. Not only are the women stalked harmed physically, mentally, emotionally and often, financially — even having to leave their jobs or being fired — but their children and everyone else around them suffer. Men are affected because these women are their wives, girfriends, mothers, daughters, sisters, aunts, grandmothers, granddaughters, cousins, friends, etc.

It’s undisputed that Paula Goodspeed did stalk Paula Abdul. There is no allegation that Paula Abdul did anything to harm Paula Goodspeed, so why are so many people attacking the stalking victim? What if this stalker had done as she threatened to do and killed Paula Abdul to make her her “guardian angel?” The big question that people should ask is whether the producers of Idol knew it when they let her on the show. Paula Abdul alleges that they let a known stalker of one of their employees into her workplace. It is crucial that people understand the seriousness of workplace stalking. Most stalking situations begin as domestic violence issues and may spill over into the workplace (see, e.g. Gantt v. Security, USA at http://www.dvmartinlaw.com/GanttvSecurityUSA) and others involve stalkers who are delusional strangers. Any woman may be stalked by an obsessed workplace stranger, while doing nothing more than “working while female;” yet, there is no federal statute that specifically prohibits employers from retaliating against stalking victims or require an employer to keep a stalker out of the workplace. (Of course, men are stalked too, but to a much smaller degree and with much less chance of violence toward them.) Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex, including sexual harassment. I am currently before the United States Supreme Court, asking the Court to address workplace stalking under Title VII. See http://www.dvmartinlaw.com/Martin and See recent http://alexisamoore.blogspot.com/2008/11/111408-us-supreme-court-will-decide.html.
If the Court doesn’t apply Title VII, we need a new federal statute that specifically prevents employer retaliation against stalking victims (such as firing them) and obligates employers to take reasonable steps to keep known stalkers out of the workplace.

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