When the ESPN and “Dancing With the Stars” beauty recently stayed at the Marcel Hotel in Gramercy, “Staff were instructed to keep their eyes out for any Peeping Toms, checked who was staying in neighboring rooms and guarded her room,” said our source.
Other stars checking in there included Nikki Blonsky, the star of ABC’s “Huge,” and rapper Trey Songz.
Erin Andrews will talk about sports, about her experience on “Dancing With the Stars” and about her advocacy for crime victims.
As for her status with ESPN once the College World Series ends?
“I’m in a situation where I’m not talking to people about that,” Andrews said Wednesday.
Andrews’ contract expires July 1, meaning the CWS could be her last assignment for the cable sports giant.
Her Los Angeles-based agent, Babette Perry, also declined to comment.
Andrews built her celebrity at ESPN and expanded upon it as a finalist on ABC’s “Dancing With the Stars” this year. She said she hopes to stay involved in sports but also cross over more into other areas.
“I already have,” she said. “It used to be the guys just wanted to talk to me about sports. Now women know more about me because of ‘Dancing With the Stars’ and they want to ask me about ‘Max,’” she said, referring to her dance partner, Maksim Chmerkovskiy.
Andrews said she also wants to continue speaking out on behalf of women who have been crime victims, particularly victims of stalking, such as herself.
A 48-year-old man in March was sentenced to 27 months in prison for following Andrews to at least three cities and shooting videos of her in the nude through hotel peepholes last year.
“My life has totally changed after everything that happened last summer,” Andrews said.
She said she is using her visibility to be a mouthpiece for the strengthening of anti-stalking laws.
“Laws need to be stronger. Right now they’re a big joke,” she said. “Laws haven’t kept up with the times. Stalking has become much more popular.”
She said she plans to become active in the U.S. Justice Department’s “Join the List” campaign, a celebrity-driven campaign marking the 15 years since President Bill Clinton signed the Violence Against Women Act of 1994. Andrews also is working with the National Center for the Victims of Crime.
Since her stalking case made news last year, Andrews has said she’s been subjected to taunts from crowds at events.
“You always get idiots who make comments,” she said.
At the CWS, camera phones and digital cameras point at Andrews as she crosses from one dugout to the other between innings and while she’s giving on-field reports, but she said fans have been nice to her.
“Omaha is very easy,” she said. “Omaha people are sweet about everything.”
SI.com spoke with Dancing with the Stars contestant and ESPN sideline reporter Erin Andrews last Thursday. Andrews’ response to being ripped by a Toronto Star columnist and her comments about a rumored romance with dance partner Maksim Chmerkovskiy appeared in Thursday’s P.M. Hot Clicks
SI.com: How are you doing in light of the recent death threats against you?
Andrews: The past week was a really hard week. I’m not going to lie and say that it didn’t bring everything back that I had to deal with last summer. Granted, this was to a different level, but it brought back a lot of different emotions that I was trying to get past. But it just puts me back in the spotlight and makes me an example of how stalking is for real and it needs to be taken seriously, and I think it forces me even more to say to myself, “OK, how am I going to use this platform, how can I show women they have to be smart about their safety and protection?” But it’s been a difficult week.
SI.com: How has being in sports affected you on DWTS?
Andrews: There’s a lot from sports that’s has rubbed off on me. I really wanted Maks as a partner because he reminded me of Urban Meyer and Nick Saban — your no-nonsense kind of coach. I wanted someone who wasn’t going take any of my bull. I hurt my back this week. It really, really hurt, but I wasn’t going to tell the doctors about it because I love athletes who tough it out. So, I didn’t want to go to the doctor, but Maks called production and said, “I need to get her a doctor because I need her back to be OK.” And I was like, “No, no, just tell me I’m good to go.” And I still think of this as a game. I always ask, “When are we getting to the stadium?” And people here are like, “Do you mean the studio?”
You can read the entire interview here:
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2010/writers/jimmy_traina
First she was secretly videotaped in the nude. Now she’s receiving death threats. At least a dozen e-mails had been sent to a media outlet threatening ESPN reporter and “Dancing With the Stars” contestant Erin Andrews since September, her attorney Marshall Grossman said.
The messages discuss the case of Michael David Barrett, who was sentenced last month to 2 1/2 years in federal prison for secretly shooting nude videos of Andrews, her attorney Marshall Grossman said.
“He refers to Barrett in his e-mail in a way to make clear to us that situation had some influence,” Grossman said, but added that the man appeared to have no ties to Barrett.
DirecTV provided the emails to Andrews’ representatives Thursday.
The e-mails were at first sexual, but the most recent were explicitly violent and “threatened Erin with murder,” Grossman said. They also had details about location and method.
The FBI has been notified, Grossman said. He said the man’s identity is known to law enforcement and is believed to live on the East Coast. An e-mail message left for an FBI spokeswoman was not immediately returned.
Andrews is not yet seeking a restraining order but has asked ABC to beef up its security on “Dancing with the Stars,” Grossman said.
Private security also has been hired to protect Andrews and her family.
Andrews has no plans of quitting the show.
“She’s not the type to be easily threatened,” Grossman said. “She has every intention to meet her obligations.”
Erin Andrews wowed judges with her cha-cha during last week’s “Dancing with the Stars” premiere, but it looks like she danced straight into partner Maksim “Maks” Chmerkovskiy’s heart.
Chmerkovskiy says that he and the ESPN sportscaster are “maybe” dating, according to Hollywoodlife.com.
“She does not hold back. She’s open, and what you see is what there is,” Chmerkovskiy told People magazine. “Everybody who meets her falls in love with her.”
Chmerkovskiy, who was previously engaged to “DWTS” co-star Karina Smirnoff, credited himself for pushing Andrews during their first dance.
“I made her do a cha-cha that I would make a professional dancer do,” he said.
Andrews wasn’t shy about gushing over her partner, either.
“When Kentucky was upset, [Maks] texted me about it,” Andrews said of having to miss some of the NCAA tournament for rehearsal. “He was like, ‘You’re the only person I know that cares about this.’ He’s been adorable.”
An Illinois insurance executive who secretly shot nude videos of ESPN reporter Erin Andrews was sentenced Monday to 2 1/2 years in prison after giving a tearful apology that was harshly rebuked by his victim.
Michael David Barrett pleaded guilty in December to interstate stalking after prosecutors accused him of following the reporter to at least three cities and shooting the videos through hotel peepholes.
Barrett, 48, of suburban Chicago, agreed to a 27-month prison sentence after pleading guilty but it was up to the judge to decide how long he would actually serve.
Andrews urged the judge at the hearing for a harsher sentence and said she fears for her life every time she enters a hotel.
“You violated me and you violated all women,” Andrews told Barrett. “You are a sexual predator, a sexual deviant and they should lock you up.”
After the sentencing, she said, “Thirty months isn’t enough.”
Barrett admitted renting hotel rooms next to Andrews three times and shooting two videos of her while she was naked. He was accused of posting the videos online and trying to sell them to Los Angeles-based celebrity gossip site TMZ last year.
U.S. District Judge Manuel Real said he gave Barrett the maximum sentence under the law.
“The victim, Andrews, will be suffering with this problem for the rest of her life,” Real said. “There is no life sentence that can be imposed upon him, except his own guilt.”
Barrett cried as he addressed Andrews in court, saying he would spend the rest of his life regaining the respect of his friends and family and atoning for his mistakes.
“There are no words to tell Ms. Andrews how sorry I am for what I’ve done to her,” he said. “I hope someday she can forgive me.”
Andrews, visibly nervous as she spoke, said she had no sympathy for Barrett’s claim he was publicly humiliated.
“It’s my body on the Internet,” she said. “I’m being traumatized every single day for what he did. … This will never be over for me.”
Barrett, who has until May 3 to surrender, was ordered to have supervised probation for three years after his release, during which he will be prohibited from contacting Andrews, her family or friends.
He will not be allowed to stay in a hotel without approval of a probation officer and if he accepts employment somewhere, Andrews will be notified. Barrett was also ordered to pay $5,000 in fines and $7,366 in restitution, but the judge said further restitution may be imposed to compensate ESPN.
Barrett’s lawyer, David Willingham, said his client is undergoing psychological treatment and “has sought the path of redemption.”
“Mr. Barrett has lost everything he built throughout his life,” Willingham said. “He’s lost his career, his fiancee and his life savings. He knows that he brought this on himself.”
Federal prosecutors in Los Angeles have agreed not to pursue further charges against Barrett. However, he could face criminal action in other states stemming from other videos he allegedly shot of unsuspecting nude women through peepholes.
Andrews’ attorney, Marshall Grossman, has said there could be as many as a dozen other women that Barrett taped.
A sentencing memo filed last month in federal court says Barrett uploaded videos of 16 other women to an online account.
Barrett also allegedly conducted 30 Internet background checks that can produce birthdays and home addresses, the document said. The filing did not name the other alleged victims or say what information he obtained or how he may have used it.
Prosecutors claim that 32 videos provided by DailyMotion.com show Barrett “victimized approximately 16 other women in almost precisely the same way that he victimized” Andrews. They did not identify the women.
Andrews testified in December that Barrett’s actions had a devastating impact on her and her family because she is constantly reminded that his videos appeared online and is subjected to taunts from sports fans when she works as a sideline reporter.
Andrews has agreed to appear on the new season of ABC-TV’s “Dancing with the Stars” – an offer she said ABC made before the stalking allegations. She said she doesn’t want to seclude herself from the public eye because other victims would get the wrong message.
“I did nothing wrong. Just trying to live my life,” she said.
“I had to deal with a lot of people who said I deserved it, that I had played to a certain audience.”
Her attorney said she will not file a lawsuit against Barrett.
The video stalker who secretly shot footage of naked ESPN reporter Erin Andrews through a hotel peephole had 16 other victims — but failed to net more female sports figures and TV personalities, as he had wanted, new court documents revealed yesterday.
Loser lecher Michael Barrett, a 48-year-old insurance exec, ran creepy background checks — compiling birth dates and home addresses — on Andrews and more than 30 other women, some of whom were TV sportscasters and stars, authorities said in a presentencing memo to an LA judge.
Using the information, he wound up victimizing “approximately 16 other women in almost precisely the same way that he victimized” Andrews — although none of them is believed to be celebrities, the documents said.
Videos of Andrews and the other women are still floating around the Internet under such titles as “Erin Andrews in a Pink Thong,” “Sexy Hot Blonde Strips After Workout” and “Hottie Breasts,” the court papers said.
Andrews — who says she’s been an emotional basket case since the footage entered Internet infamy last year — is seeking $335,000 in restitution from Barrett.
He has already pleaded guilty to interstate stalking and is set to be sentenced on March 8, when he is expected to receive a 27- month jail term.
Barrett, who could have gotten up to five years, is free on bail.
Andrews, 31, “wakes up at least once a night fearing that defendant is breaking into her home,” the court papers said.
“Whenever she goes to work, she must deal . . . with worries that she is not being taken seriously.
“Also disturbing is the fact that many people, including some of victim Andrews’ peers in the media, wrongly believed that victim Andrews had something to do with these videos, that she orchestrated them to boost her career,” according to the documents.
Barrett would hunt down Andrews to her hotel and rent the room next to hers, then shoot video footage of her naked through the peephole.
He admitted to doing this three times, as she showered, dried her hair and got dressed.
He then posted 10 videos on the Web — and another 32 “hotel peephole” clips of the other women, the papers said.
Andrews’ lawyer said the reporter plans to argue for a harsher sentence for Barrett at his next hearing. Andrews said after Barrett’s last court hearing, “I want him to stay in jail as long as possible; he’s a threat to women everywhere.”
She also said ESPN had hired a fulltime bodyguard to travel with her on assignments. With Post Wire Services
Search warrants have been served at Yahoo Inc. and Google Inc. in connection with an Illinois man accused of secretly recording nude videos of ESPN reporter Erin Andrews.
FBI agents served the warrants on Wednesday at the Northern California offices of both tech giants. One of the items they want Yahoo to turn over is a video of another naked woman that was posted in June to Flickr.com by a user.
Authorities believe the Flickr account belongs to 48-year-old Michael Barrett, who pleaded not guilty last month to interstate stalking. Flickr is owned by Yahoo.
Barrett is suspected of renting hotel rooms adjacent to Andrews three times last year and altering peepholes. He allegedly shot videos of her on two of those occasions.
E-mails seeking comment were sent to Yahoo and Google with no response.
An Illinois insurance executive accused of secretly making nude videos of ESPN reporter Erin Andrews is expected to make his first court appearance Friday.
Michael Barrett was due in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles to face one count of interstate stalking. He is free on $4,500 bond and scheduled to be arraigned in the same courtroom on Monday.
The 47-year-old Barrett is charged with making videos of Andrews through the peephole in her hotel room door, and federal prosecutors say he uploaded to the Internet nude videos of other women also made through peepholes.
Prosecutors add Barrett tried to sell the Andrews videos to celebrity gossip site TMZ.
Interstate stalking carries a maximum penalty of five years in federal prison and a fine of $250,000.
