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Tom Cruise - Source: Reuters
A judge has ordered an Iraq war veteran to stay away from Tom
Cruise, after the man brandished a gun near a freeway and weeks
later tried to hand-deliver a letter to the actor, attorneys
said.
Edward Van Tassel, 29, wanted to get the letter in Cruise's hands
to enlist him in the cause of helping other veterans, said the
former soldier's attorney, Robert Landheer.
Van Tassel went to Cruise's Beverly Hills mansion on December 3 and
again on Sunday in an attempt to deliver the letter, Landheer
said.
On Wednesday, Santa Barbara Superior Court Judge George Eskin
issued a restraining order to prevent Van Tassel from approaching
Cruise or his residential property.
"He's coming home like hundreds of other veterans, wounded and
suffering from whatever kind of scarring that is," Landheer
said.
Bert Fields, an attorney for Cruise, said the actor did not ask for
the restraining order.
"Tom didn't even know about it, and the judge did the right thing -
you've got to respect the judge for it. But it was not something
Tom applied for," Fields said.
Authorities arrested Van Tassel last month on weapons charges after
an incident near Santa Barbara, northwest of Los Angeles, in which
he stood on a freeway overpass with a gun and a sign in what his
attorney described as a protest.
Following the arrest, he was sent to a veterans' hospital in Los
Angeles, but left the facility when he tried to deliver the letter
to Cruise.
Van Tassel has been sent back to the hospital where he is receiving
psychiatric care and is no longer permitted to leave, Landheer
said.
Fields said Cruise feels very strongly about veterans of not only
the Iraq war, but any veterans of war, and that they should be
taken care of.
