FBI Announces Sentencing for Stalker’s 12-Years of Death-Threats Toward Eva LaRue & Daughter
Photo: Stock Image
Written By Barbara Reilley
LOS ANGELES – A 12-year campaign of threats to rape, torture, and kill both actress, beauty queen and cover girl Eva LaRue (55) and her young daughter earned an Ohio man a federal prison sentence. United States District Judge.
John A. Kronstadt sentenced James David Rogers (58) of Heath, Ohio to 40 months behind bars.
Court documents illustrated the lengths to which the stalker went to harass La Rue – beginning in 2007 when her daughter was 5 years old. A February 2008 letter vowed, “I am going to…stalk you until the day you die.”
Other threatening letters repeatedly promised to rape the Emmy-nominated “All My Children” supporting actress and her child, and continued until Rogers’ arrest in November 2019. Approximately 37 handwritten and typed letters were mailed between March 2007 – June 2015, culminating with the statement sent to LaRue’s daughter: “I am the man who has been stalking for the last 7 years. Now I have my eye on you, too.”
The man who signed letters as “Freddie Krueger” – the horror film series’ “A Nightmare on Elm Street” fictional character – called La Rue’s daughter’s school in October and Novenber 2019, claimed to be her father to a school employee, and then asked if she was present. A November voicemail left for the school ID’d himself as Krueger, with threats to rape, molest, and kill the child.
The FBI included prosecutors’ sentencing memorandum: “[Rogers’] threats impacted the daily lives of his victims – [LaRue and her daughter] moved numerous times in hopes that [Rogers] would not find them again. They drove circuitous routes home, slept with weapons nearby and had discussions about how to seek help quickly if [Rogers] found them and tried to harm them.”
Just as insidious was the mention of attempts at anonymizing their home addresses – to no avail – as horrifying packages and mail arrived at their actual address. Multiple moves were followed by victims’ terror at Rogers’ unrelenting letters.
Rogers’ guilty plea on April 28th claimed two counts of mailing threatening communications, one count of threats by interstate communications, and two counts of stalking. The FBI investigated this matter, followed by Assistant United States Attorneys Sara Vargas and Amy Pomerantz of the Violent and Organized Crime Section’s prosecution of this case.
