Former navy seal accused of stalking Crow

A former US navy commando’s “dangerous obsession” with singer Sheryl Crow led him to track her down and pay alarming visits to her and her family before he was arrested, a New York Court was told.

Prosecutor Tara Daly told the jury in opening remarks that Ambrose Kappos, aged 38, would convict himself of burglary and stalking.

“His own videotaped statement will show you how deliberate he was in his pursuit of Sheryl Crow,” she said.

Kappos is accused of pursuing Crow from July 2002 until October 2003, when he was arrested after finding her at a Manhattan concert hall.

Penelope Seaman, the police officer who arrested Kappos, said he told her Crow was his “spiritual twin” and that he and the pop rocker were destined to marry and have children.

Earlier in 2003, Kappos flew from his base in Virginia to Missouri to see Crow’s sister and parents, whom he had found using the internet, Daly said.

Kappos told Crow’s father that he found the family’s home by following a bird and that he wanted a date with the singer, Daly said. Crow’s father “was greatly concerned for the safety of his daughter”.

Pamela Wertheimer, a member of Crow’s management team, said she saw Kappos outside Crow’s dressing room at the concert hall on October 6 last year after an audio check for a show Crow was to do later.

Wertheimer said that while she, Crow and two other employees left the building through a rear door to get into a limousine, “I heard a man say: ’Hi, I’m Ambrose’.”

Crow’s entourage recognised the name from the incident with her family. Security guards then grabbed Kappos and called police.

Kappos’ lawyer Stan Hickman urged jurors to acquit his client. In early cross-examinations he emphasised that Kappos had not been accused of anything violent.

Court papers say Kappos, who is on bail, was a US navy Seal until his discharge last June.