Woman jailed in 'American Idol' singer stalking

MELBOURNE, Australia -- An Australian woman was sentenced to more than two years in prison on Friday for stalking an "American Idol" contestant over the Internet from the other side of the world.

Tanya Maree Quattrocchi, 23, pleaded guilty earlier this month to four charges of cyber-stalking for hacking into Diana DeGarmo's MySpace account and intercepting her e-mails and those of her mother, Brenda, and housemate, model Donielle Morris. DeGarmo was the 2004 runner-up in the U.S. television singing contest.

Quattrocchi had initially pretended to be a 14-year-old fan to join the singer's MySpace site before hacking into it.

In November 2007, she sent an e-mail to Degarmo's sister-in-law in which she made fictitious claims about the entertainer's sex life that Judge Lisa Hannan described as explicit and disgraceful.

"From a victim's perspective, you are a faceless stalker invading every aspect of their lives. There is no door to lock, no alarm to activate," Hannan said.

The Victoria state County Court sentenced Quattrocchi, of Melbourne, to 26 months in prison.

The judge described Quattrocchi's offenses as serious, especially considering they began only six months after she was convicted on similar charges.

In 2007, Quattrocchi was sentenced to 150 hours of community service for cyber-stalking and blackmailing DeGarmo in 2006.

The new convictions are for offenses since November 2007. She has been in custody since January, when she was arrested as she sat a computer typing an e-mail pretending to be DeGarmo's mother.

The judge expressed concern that Quattrocchi had told a doctor she felt she had been wronged and proposed to write a book about her experience.

Hannan warned that a book had the "potential to constitute further offending."

Since "American Idol," DeGarmo has released an album, "Blue Skies," and appeared on Broadway in "Hairspray."