Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - What? No jail time for Sandra Bullock’s stalker!

Episode Date: May 25, 2017

The stalker who broke into Sandra Bullock’s home, forcing the frightened actress to hide in a closet, was sentenced to 5 years probation after pleading no contest in a Los Angeles court. Joshua James Corbett, 41, must also undergo mental evaluation. Nancy Grace and Alan Duke discuss the case in this episode. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. with an alleged stalker inside her home. Someone has broken into my house. I'm hiding in the closet. They're in the house now? Yes, yes, they are. The silver screen sweetheart was sleeping at home when loud bangs from inside her house woke her up in the middle of the night. I'm locked in my closet. I have a safe door in my bedroom,

and I blocked it, and I'm locked in the closet right now. The Gravity star seeing Joshua Corbett walking down the hallway of her $16 million Hollywood Hills mansion. This is Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Police say they found the 39-year-old roaming in Bullock's house, screaming, Sandy, I'm sorry, please don't press charges. Corbett was carrying handwritten notes addressed to her, calling Bullock his wife. America's sweetheart, Sandra Bullock. I love her. A stalker breaks into her home, stalking her. She has to hide in her closet in fear. And this guy gets straight probation. Have they lost their minds? I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories. Thank you

for being with us. This stalker who breaks into America's sweetheart Sandra Bullock's home is now going to be released on straight probation. He will walk the streets a free man because a judge orders him to serve just five years probation and quote stay away from Sandra Bullock. Now, according to TMZ, he's got to go to treatments at a mental health facility. And he will be monitored by a probation officer to make sure he's taking his medication. You have got to be kidding me. He can't be monitored.

He can check in with his probation officer at 8 o'clock in the morning and go straight to her house. Straight to her house. And then this judge rules that this guy, Corbett, has to stay away from Miss Congeniality for 10 years. Okay. The Oscar winner, who is terrified, lives alone with her adopted children, Louis and Layla. She bumps into the stalker in her home when she's awakened in the middle of the night by a loud noise. Now think about it.

You wake up in the middle of the night. You get up and you actually bump in to some pervy, freaky dude wandering around in your home in the dark and you've got your two children there. She around in your home in the dark, and you've got your two children there. She had to go hide in the closet while she guided police to her home. They don't get – what happened to caller ID, Alan Duke?

The police don't have caller ID? She's got to call police and then tell them, okay, turn right here and left here. What? There's a problem here. Man, you're not kidding people who live in beverly hills west hollywood hollywood area there are i was looking at this map last night there are three different jurisdictions there's beverly hills police the west hollywood jurisdiction covered by the sheriff's department of los angeles and then there's the lapd which covers hollywood

you've seen congressional you know what no you need to just stop right now, Alan D. Don't start telling me how police can get lost in their own jurisdiction. They can. It's horrible. You've been up in the Hollywood Hills area. It is like a gerrymandered congressional district. You know how the little whining? That's the way

they cut up the jurisdictions. Three different police agencies. When there's a fire up there, it is a mess. They don't know which fire truck to send. Please stop. Please finish your thought. Please. How long can you go on?

It's a geographic mess because you've got these hills and these cross jurisdictions. I'll show you the map. Are you done? Are you done? Well, I'm just saying you asked me a question. That's the answer. It's because it's messed up. You said it, Alan.

You said it. You said it. You basically said the map is too confusing for the police to get to a 911 stalker call when some pervy freak is in Sandra Bullock's house in the middle of the night. They have to debate which jurisdiction is supposed to go. It's a problem. I heard you. Okay.

I hear your objection. It's a problem. I heard you. Okay. I hear your objection. It's overruled. To suggest the police don't know how to get to Sandra Bullock's house. I mean, every tour guide in LA knows how to get to her house. And they've got buses going by with loudspeakers. No, the scandal is they make that stuff up. When you take one of

these Hollywood tours and they say that's Sandra Bullock's house, they might be lying to you. And some of them got busted for it. Some perv is in her home. And you say the scandal is that tour guides lie. Okay, clearly you're not understanding what could have happened to her. Because when police get her.

Oh no, I covered this story when it happened. I know this guy was armed and dangerous. This guy had a weapons cache in his home. I mean, machine guns. The person, Joshua James Corbett, was charged with a felony, stalking and felony burglary. When police got there, he was clutching a black notebook with a two-page letter to Sandra Bullock and magazine photos of the actress. He was unarmed at the time, but police found automatic weapons and illegal tracer ammunition in his home. Now, the weapons were found while cops were trying to find eight legal firearms he owned but needed to surrender due to a TRO that was already issued against him.

Now catch this. An appeals court later rules LAPD illegally searched his home so prosecutors could not submit the evidence at his trial. He has expressed remorse saying, I had already hurt somebody I didn't intend to. I did not want to affect my family with my actions. What about her and her family? I mean, if you hear this 911 call, she says, Let's play it. Someone's broken into my house. I'm hiding in the closet.

Yeah, please roll it. Hello? 911 emergency, Office 342 reporting. Yes, I'm address... Someone has broken into my house. I'm hiding in the closet. They're in the house now? Yes, yes, they are.

I just saw them walk under the attic. I have a... Is it a man or a woman? I think it was a man. I'm locked in my closet. I have a safe door in my bedroom, and I've locked it, and I'm locked in the closet right now. Don't hang up. I'm going to dispatch the police, okay? Don't hang up on me. And I'll give you the gate code.

Okay, one second, okay? You're not going to hear me, but I haven't hung up on you. Okay. Okay, tell us what the person was wearing. What color is your pants? All I saw was, like, dark sweatshirt and dark pants. I'm going up the stairs to my attic and I have a door to my bedroom that's a safe door and I just hit the button and I'm hiding in the closet right now. Do you have any weapons? Are you armed? No, I'm not. Okay. And are there any animals in the house? No, not right now. And my son's not here either right now. I'm sorry, what was that? It's pound.

Pound, oh, shoot. What's your name, ma'am? Sandra Bullock. Sunday, 0638 and 39 seconds. Okay. I want you to let me know if you hear anything at all. 0638 and 39 seconds. Okay. I want you to let me know if you hear anything at all. I'm in my closet.

I don't think I can see anything. But I will. 0638 and 59 seconds. And, oh, the doors downstairs are locked. But I heard them break in. So I told them to walk around. I heard noises. And I know that they broke in. So they had to have gotten in somehow.

So I told the officers just to walk around and see where they came in. I couldn't hear what door it was. It was just a loud, loud, loud crash. I'm going to pause and thank our awesome sponsor, our partner in today's podcast. And I'll start with a story out of Racine, Wisconsin. A house catches on fire. Nobody's home. It took a while for neighbors to even notice the problem.

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Are you serious? I just, you know what? Please, I don't want to reopen that can of worms again. All right? I don't want to hear you start telling me about the YD roads and Hollywood Hill. Okay? Jurisdictional lines. Yeah.

Okay. Yeah. You're just putting perfume on the pig now. Jurisdictional lines. My rear end. They didn't know how to get to her home. All right. Now, there are two children in the picture what

does that mean how does that change anything to me it would change a lot because now you've got to worry about what he may do to these children the intruder was arrested in her home who came face to face with her right outside her bedroom door she walks out the bedroom door and literally runs into him. Now, the search warrant that allowed the cots to search for an arsenal of weapons indicates what police were looking for, but they believe that there are more out there. The search warrant, as we know it, outlines the confrontation between Bullock and her stalker. This all goes down around 1 a.m. She's in bed and she hears a loud banging. Goes to her bedroom door to close it and lock it and there is Corbett right there wearing dark ninja colored clothing. She slams the door, locks it,

calls 911. She tells Cupp she showered before going to bed so he may have been there the whole time. And when police arrive, he starts screaming, Sandy, I'm sorry, please don't press charges. He's not crazy, Alan. He's saying please don't press charges. He knows darn well what he did is wrong. He's obsessed. He's not crazy. Please don't press charges. That's true. He knows the difference what he did is wrong. He's obsessed. He's not crazy. Please don't press charges.

That's true. He knows the difference between right and wrong. That's the definition, right, of insanity. You know the difference between right and wrong. He knows. So he was carrying the notebook I told you about with cut-out magazine photos of Bullock and multiple handwritten notes. One of the notes reads,

I will forever be thinking of you and Louie, my son, as you are my wife by law, the law of God, and you belong to me and me to you. Okay. He also says he forgives her for, quote, anything you might have done and tries to compliment her, saying she is hot and intelligent, lissome and taut. O-K-T-A-U-G-H-T. I'm not going to comment on that. Okay, so Alan, why is he on probation? Can somebody explain that to me? The idea is that the guy needs mental help, and that's what the court has imposed.

You can get that behind bars. To use some movie titles she's involved in, the court realizes the gravity of the situation so that she not be blindsided by this guy again. I really wish you hadn't done that. Because in my mind, as funny as you may think it is, it really makes light of this. I mean, if I woke up, especially with my children home, and he actually refers to

Louie, I mean, this is her home. Her home where she's supposed to feel safe. What's amazing to me is he entered this as a no contest, a no-lo. There was no agreement for sentencing. Clearly, they could not reach an agreement with the DA. So the judge did this all on his own, all on his own. He decides this guy's going to walk scot-free. It's not scot-free. He's got probation. Well, it's probation, but they're going to require that he receives this mental health evaluation. He's going into a mental health facility.

That's not free. He's on probation. Hello. And he has to check in with a probation officer. He lurked outside the gates of her home for days before jumping over the fence. He rang her doorbell and then entered her home through a sunroom door. She didn't know any of this. She was probably, that's when she was probably in the shower.

He had 25 pages of writing, including the note, describing his obsession, saying he's her husband. His lawyers challenged all of this. They challenged the basis of police searching Corbett's home and finding that arsenal of weapons. And then some moron on an appeals court agrees. He faced up to 12 years behind bars, but instead he's getting straight probation. Well, the 12 years was not for the stalking. That was for the guns. And they couldn't, I mean, an illegal search. We can't have illegal searches. You know what?

I don't even know what language you're speaking. Corbett's defense lawyers tried to suggest he was having an opiate withdrawal experience because he granted police consent to search his home. Okay. He allowed them to search his home. So it has really nothing to do with the warrant at all. What do you make of the claims of the illegal tracer ammunition? The tracer ammunition, I've shot those. I was in the military. You have those in the military. The only reason you've got those is if you've got a machine gun and you, at nighttime, want to follow the trail of your bullets.

It's got this phosphate on it, and it makes like an arc in the sky, the bullet thing. It's a pretty cool thing, like a fireworks thing, but it doesn't make the bullet more dangerous. Okay. Why would he need that? Just means he's into guns. We know that. You wouldn't, except at a shooting range. Unless you're a freak or in the military and you need it. Or a gun enthusiast exercising your

right to bear arms. A gun enthusiast with alleged opiate withdrawal. Well, the thing is now he loses any right to have a gun. It's hard to have a gun legally in Los Angeles anyway, but he loses any right to have that because of this conviction. Alan, could you please play her 911 call one more time? I want to hear this. Hello? 911 emergency, office 340 reporting. Yes, someone has broken into my house. I'm hiding in the closet. They're in the house now? Yes, yes, they are. I just saw them walk into the attic. Is it a man or a woman? I think it was a man. I'm locked in my closet. I have a safe door in my bedroom, and I've locked it, and I'm locked in the closet right now.

Don't hang up. I'm going to dispatch the police, okay? Don't hang up on me. Okay, and I'll give you the gate code. Okay, one second, okay? You're not going to hear me, but I haven't hung up on you. Okay. Okay, tell us what the person was wearing, what color she was wearing. All I saw was like dark sweatshirt and dark pants. I'm going up the stairs to my attic, and I have a door to my bedroom that's a safe door, and I can hit the button, and I'm hiding in the closet right now.

Do you have any weapons? Are you armed? No, I'm not. Okay. And are there any animals in the house? No, not right now. And my son's not here either right now. I'm sorry, what was that? It's pound. Pound. Oh, shoot.

Eight and twenty-nine seconds. What's your name, ma'am? Sandra Bullock. Sunday, 0638 and 39 seconds. Okay. I want you to let me know if you hear or see anything at all. I'm in my closet. I don't think I can see anything. But I will.

I445. 0638 and 59 seconds. I think, but I will. 5-4-4-5-9-0-6-30-8-and-59-7. And, oh, the door's downstairs unlocked. But I heard them break in. So I told them to walk around. I heard noises. And I know that they broke in. So they had to have gotten in somehow.

So I told the officers just to walk around and see where they came in. I couldn't hear what door it was. It was just a loud, loud crash. Allen, who is the judge that allowed this? NOLO. It's not even a plea deal because I'm sure prosecutors would not go along with straight probation, but they couldn't stop Corbett from pleading guilty. That's his right under the Constitution. And then the judge imposed his sentence. What moronic judge did that? Well, i don't want to call him moronic that's you saying that but it is what's me saying and i own it i own it i said it i said it the judge is an idiot in this case god who is it i don't even want to i have to live here, Nancy. Okay. Tell me I will come there to your home and beat it out of you with a noodle.

What? The judge over this case is Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Edmund W. Clark Jr. That's the same one that ruled the evidence out. Yes, that is the one. Why? I mean, are the judges there elected or what there was a three court appeals court panel in the california second district court of appeals that then threw out the gun evidence okay yeah i get that i get that so he had to rule that way on the gun evidence because

an appellate court a higher court made him but they didn't make him take this NOLO plea. They didn't make him agree to straight probation for a stalker of Sandra Bullock. And I'm not saying she is any more important than any other stalking victim. But what this case does is bring to light how lightly this type of felony crime is treated. And I don't like it, and I think he should be off the bench. And if the judges there are elected, his constituents need to vote his sorry rear end off the bench. That's what I got to say. And again, if you're not there when a fire starts,

who will be there to save your home? With Simply Save Home Security, your smoke detectors immediately alert emergency services at the first sign of a fire. Get 10% off your system today at simplisafe.com slash nancy. That's simplisafe.com slash nancy. I'm Nancy Grace, Crime Stories, signing off. Goodbye, friend. This is an iHeart Podcast.