Letterman defeats harassment accuser

LOS ANGELES - David Letterman, the doyen of American late-night chat show hosts, has won a court ruling over a restraining order against him.

Letterman has had his share of fans with unhealthy fixations, but this one probably beats them all: a New Mexico woman who claims he has been sending her secret coded messages over the airwaves so incessantly that it constitutes "mental harassment and hammering".

A couple of weeks ago, Colleen Nestler of Santa Fe successfully applied for a restraining order forcing Mr Letterman to stay at least 100 yards away from her.

She alleged that his subliminal messages - including, supposedly, an entreaty to marry him and become his co-host -- had caused her sleep deprivation, pushed her into bankruptcy and inflicted general "mental cruelty".

Since Mr Letterman lives in Connecticut, roughly 2,000 miles from Santa Fe, the restraining order was not exactly a crimp on his day-to-day existence.

But it did offend his sense of judicial fairness, so he sent his own lawyers to the New Mexico courts this week to have it lifted.

"Celebrities deserve protection of their reputation and legal rights when the occasional fan becomes dangerous or deluded," Mr Letterman's lawyer Pat Rogers said in a written motion to the court.

The judge granted the request, noting that the original restraining order was granted merely as a matter of "proper pleading" - a legal term meaning that the paperwork was filled out correctly, no more and no less.

Ms Nestler's original complaint fit right into a certain American paranoid subculture that has, in the past, embraced alien abductions and secret CIA chips inserted in people's heads.

She said she had begun sending Mr Letterman love messages as early as 1993, and that he had responded with a suggestion that she move to the East Coast.

His marriage proposal supposedly came in a teaser for his show in which he said, jokingly, "Marry me, Oprah." According to Ms Nestler, Oprah was the first of many code names he used for her.

The code became more sophisticated and complex over time.

Reacting to the failure of her restraining order, Ms Nestler told reporters she had achieved her purposes by alerting the public to the menace Mr Letterman supposedly represented.

If he or his representatives tried to come near her, she added, "I will break their legs."

Like many celebrities, Mr Letterman has had fan trouble in the past. A Connecticut woman, Margaret Mary Ray, was arrested several times for stalking him over a five-year period.

Earlier this year, a former painter on Mr Letterman's ranch in Montana was arrested on charges of plotting to kidnap Mr Letterman's son and nanny.

He was sentenced in September to 10 years in prison after pleading guilty to lesser charges.

- INDEPENDENT