Actor fights off second stalker in court

Los Angeles - A 45-year-old woman was charged on Thursday with stalking US actor John Cusack, whom she allegedly pestered with text, Twitter and other messages for the last three years, prosecutors said.

Elizabeth Diane Pahlke, who was arrested near the star's Malibu home earlier this week, pleaded not guilty to stalking Cusack since October 2010.

Pahlke allegedly followed the 47-year-old actor - whose credits include Being John Malkovich, High Fidelity, and Grosse Pointe Blank - to a restaurant and approached him, according to Shiara Davila-Morales of the LA County District Attorney's Office.

The woman, who was already subject to a restraining order recently obtained by Cusack, was also charged with one count of attempted burglary on the day she was arrested.

She was ordered to remain in custody in lieu of $200 000 bail, pending her next court appearance on 16 September.

Pahlke is not Cusack's first alleged stalker. In 2008 a 34-year-old woman, Emily Leatherman, was sentenced to undergo psychiatric counseling after she was found guilty of stalking the star.