A 25-year-old Lakewood resident, who previously pleaded guilty in an Orange County courtroom to assault and weapons charges connected with an attempt to get too close to Ryan Seacrest outside Children's Hospital of Orange
County (CHOC) in Orange last September, was scheduled to be in a Los Angeles courtroom today to face charges of trying a second time to confront the lilliputian American Idol/E! News Daily/KISS-FM/Dick Clark's Rockin' New Year's Eve host.
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Chidi Benjamin Uzomah Jr. was sentenced to
15 days in jail, three years probation and ordered to
stay away from CHOC and Seacrest after he pleaded guilty in October in Orange County Superior Court to misdemeanor assault, battery
and possession of a switchblade knife two or more inches long.
On Sept. 13, the Army Reserves sergeant attacked a security guard protecting Seacrest as the broadcaster was leaving an afternoon CHOC fund-raiser. “His aggressive and violent efforts to come
into physical
contact with me are extremely frightening to me,” Seacrest told the court as he sought a restraining order against Uzomah. “They have jeopardized
not only my personal safety but also the safety and well-being of those
around me.”
Authorities say Uzomah was looking for Seacrest Oct. 2 at radio station KIIS-FM (102.7) in Burbank, according to a Los Angeles Times report. On Oct. 30, Uzomah was armed with a knife when he walked into the
lobby of the E! Entertainment building in the 5700 block of
Wilshire Boulevard, where he was detained by security guards before being handed over to LAPD officers for arrest.
Uzomah today faces one felony count of stalking
Seacrest and two misdemeanor
counts of attempted disobeying of a court order. A conviction on all counts could get him up to four years in state prison.
OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.