FORMER “Rosie O’Donnell Show” bandleader John McDaniel is being stalked by a homeless British woman – who’s now on the loose after failing to appear for a court date.
Susan Moore, 45, has been charged in Criminal Court here with three counts of aggravated harassment against McDaniel – including showing up at his Manhattan apartment with a pair of razor-sharp scissors in her pocketbook.
Moore has spent the last two years making dozens of phone calls and sending many letters and e-mails to McDaniel, who she calls her “fiancee” – even though the two have never met.
Last April, Moore left McDaniel a chilling phone message saying, “If you wanted to make me angry, you certainly have done so.”
In another phone message, she said, “Hi, I’m just checking in. It’s been crazy. Bye. I’ll talk to you later.”
“She started calling him in his dressing room at the [‘Rosie O’Donnell’] show,” says McDaniel’s manager. “Then she started leaving messages on his [answering] service.
“She has told people that they’re engaged, which is how she gains entree,” he said. “She told cops when she was arrested that she first met John when he was walking his dogs down in the Village in 1994.
“John didn’t have dogs then – and he was living in Los Angeles.”
McDaniel kept a very detailed log of Moore’s phone calls, e-mails and letters, but was careful never to make any contact with her.
An NYPD detective eventually assigned to the case told Moore to stop bothering McDaniel.
But the harassment continued. Then, last spring, the situation came to a head when Moore showed up at McDaniel’s apartment building.
“She rang the buzzer and said, ‘I’m looking for John McD,’ ” says McDaniel’s manager, who was there with another client. “I recognized her voice immediately and called the detective on his cell phone.
“While the detective was in John’s apartment, listening to some of [Moore’s] phone messages, she was walking into the precinct house to ask why the detective had asked her to cease and desist in bothering John, since they were engaged.”
After Moore was booked on the harassment charges, cops found a pair of sharpened scissors in her purse, along with an expired visa.
“The scissors were sharpened like a hound’s tooth,” says Alberto Ebanks, McDaniel’s attorney. “The only inference is that it was a ‘Fatal Attraction’-type situation – that she was saying, ‘I will not be ignored.’ “
Moore, who was locked up for two nights, showed up for two successive court dates. A warrant was issued for her arrest when she failed to materialize for a third court date.
“At this point she’s liable to pop up at any time,” says Ebanks. “John has to take extreme measures to take care of himself.”