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LOS ANGELES (CNS) - A 47-year-old woman who in 2006 was ordered to stay away from actor John Cusack has filed her own civil harassment case against the actor, alleging he told her on the Hangouts app that the two were ``made for each other and that he loved me.''
Emily Diane Leatherman filed handwritten court papers in Los Angeles Superior Court and has included copies of multiple text messages in support of her case.
A representative for Cusack could not be immediately reached.
Cusack, now 55, won a temporary restraining order against Leatherman in 2006, alleging she had been stalking him for more than 18 months. Santa Monica Superior Court Judge Linda K. Lefkowitz, who is now retired, ordered Leatherman to stay at least 500 feet from the actor, his home, workplace, car and any company or office where he conducted business.
Cusack maintained in his court papers that Leatherman had thrown ``long letters of interest over my fence in bags with rocks and screwdrivers inside,'' made unannounced visits to offices of people with whom he worked and listed his address as her own during a recent arrest.
Leatherman also had threatened to ``commit acts of violence against herself if I do not help her," Cusack's papers stated.
The star of "Sixteen Candles'' and ``Gross Pointe Blank'' said he had never met Leatherman, but that her mail had been arriving at his home.
In a rambling statement attached to her legal action, Leatherman says she woke up in a Las Vegas hotel in the summer of 2020 and found text messages, emails and calls on her cell phone from ``either this John Cusack, the actor, or somebody saying they were John Cusack, the actor'' asking that they get on the Hangouts app so they could chat privately.
``At the time John Cusack still had a valid restraining order against me,'' Leatherman states. ``So if it was him, he was violating his own restraining order.''
Leatherman says she called the police and they confirmed Cusack's order was still in effect, but told her not to worry about the actor allegedly contacting her.
``Seems like if any crime happens to Emily Leatherman, the police do not care ...,'' Leatherman says. ``Which makes you feel like a slave and not a free American.''
Leatherman also says a man resembling Cusack was ``just watching me'' during her travels to Portland, Oregon, and Laughlin, Nevada, in 2020.
Leatherman says that at one point while they were on the Hangouts app, Cusack ``told me that we were made for each other and that he loved me.''
Leatherman is asking that Cusack be ordered to pay her apartment rent for about 2 1/2 years, as well as other incidentals.
``I think my ... demands and compensation are extremely fair and reasonable,'' Leatherman says, saying that helping her ``restore and fix'' her life would be good for the world as well as for Cusack.