JODIE FOSTER - JODIE FOSTER STALKER ARRESTED AFTER AIRPORT BOMB THREAT

JODIE FOSTER STALKER ARRESTED AFTER AIRPORT BOMB THREAT

A man who had mailed threatening letters to Jodie Foster for several years has been arrested after allegedly making a bomb threat to an airport.

Michael Smegal, 42, was found to have sent a bomb threat from his Massachussetts home to Van Nuys Airport in Los Angeles.

The letter was one of more than 100 which mentioned the Oscar-winning actress, all of which were dispatched from addresses in either Massachussetts or Rhode Island between September 2007 and January 2008.

And according to the Reuters news agency, many of the letters contained the phrase "Jodie Foster S" while the threat sent to Van Nuys contained block letters reading: "Going to be a gas bomb in this building."

The Holliston resident - who had promised in 2005 to stop sending letters to Foster - was charged at a US district court in Boston on Tuesday.

He had been sending letters to the Silence of the Lambs star since 2004, with one package containing a number for a prepaid mobile phone and instructions to call.

FBI special agent Joseph Altman said in Tuesday's affidavit: "Law enforcement called the number and spoke to an individual who identified himself as Michael Smegal.

"Smegal spoke with the agent and used the phone to send photographs of himself and his dog."

Smegal's interest does not represent the first occasion on which Foster has been the target of an obsessive fan.

John Hinckley Jr became obsessed with the star after watching her in Taxi Driver. He attempted to assassinate then US president Ronald Reagan in March 1981, afterwards claiming he had been trying to impress the actress, who was a student at Yale University at the time.