Former Des Plaines man has history of stalking young women
The former Des Plaines man accused of stalking Disney Channel actress Selena Gomez has a history of stalking young women in the suburbs, including a restaurant waitress and a convenience store clerk, Des Plaines Police Chief Jim Prandini said Tuesday.
A Los Angeles judge last week granted Gomez a restraining order against 46-year-old Thomas Brodnicki, who has been arrested numerous times in the suburbs on stalking-related offenses and served jail time for several of those offenses.
Des Plaines police arrested Brodnicki in 2003 on a criminal trespass to property charge alleging he was stalking an employee at the Sugar Bowl restaurant in the city's downtown. Brodnicki had been banned from the property at 1494 Miner St., according to police records.
“He became infatuated with a waitress,” Prandini said. “Every day that she worked, he was there. He wanted to marry her, wanted to have kids with her. She became extremely scared of him and what his motives were.”
Brodnicki would peer through the restaurant window looking for the employee and wait for her after work, police said.
He was remanded to the Department of Human Services for treatment after a court found him unfit to stand trial. Restored to fitness, he pleaded guilty in 2008 and was released from custody having received credit for time served.
While jailed for that offense, Brodnicki sent letters to the victim from prison and was charged and convicted of witness harassment in 2005, Prandini added.
Des Plaines police again arrested Brodnicki for violating an order of protection taken out against him by a former clerk at a White Hen Pantry, Prandini said.
As with the waitress, Brodnicki became infatuated with the woman and wanted to marry and have children with her, Prandini said.
Brodnicki was declared unfit for trial initially, but was found fit in 2007 after multiple stints at the Elgin Mental Health Center.
In 2008, he was arrested by Mount Prospect police after contacting the former Des Plaines store clerk by email and stating that he knew the no-contact order had expired and knew where she worked.
Brodnicki, who by this time was homeless, pleaded guilty to felony cyberstalking in that case and was sentenced to three years in prison in May 2010. At the time, Brodnicki already had served 661 days of the three years.
“When we arrested him in July 2008, he was unable to make bond,” Mount Prospect Police Cmdr. John Wagner said explaining Brodnicki's time served.
Authorities said Brodnicki was infatuated with the woman, whom he met in 2000 when she was 18, and pursued her off and on for eight years. He again told the woman he wanted to impregnate her and that “God intended it so,” authorities said.
Prandini characterized Brodnicki as dangerous even though he never threatened the women he stalked with physical harm.
“He's got some severe psychological problems,” Prandini said. “With the threat of physical harm to someone, he's really stepped it up a notch. He needs psychological help.”
Brodnicki told Los Angeles police that he traveled from Chicago to Los Angeles to meet Gomez, 19, according to court documents obtained by E! Online.
In Gomez's Oct. 13 request for a temporary restraining order, she says Brodnicki has visited her workplace at least three times to see her. She also states that Brodnicki told a physician at a Los Angeles mental health facility that he had conversations with God in which he “was thinking about killing me,” according to the documents obtained by E! Online.
Brodnicki was at the health facility during a 72-hour hold for threatening to “scratch people's eyes out” on the street, according to the court documents.