Actress Selena Gomez seeks protection against former Des Plaines stalker

A Los Angeles judge has granted actress Selena Gomez a restraining order against a former Des Plaines man who served jail time for stalking a convenience store employee.

The Disney Channel star was informed by a Los Angeles Police Department detective that 46-year-old Thomas Brodnicki admitted to traveling from Chicago to Los Angeles to meet her, according to court documents obtained by E! Online.

Brodnicki was sentenced to three years in prison in May last year on charges that he cyber-stalked a woman he met in 2000 when she was 18. Authorities said Brodnicki was infatuated with the woman and pursued her off and on for eight years. He told the woman he wanted to impregnate her and that “God intended it so.” At the time of the sentencing, Brodnicki had already served 661 days of the three years.

In Gomez's Oct. 13 declaration requesting a temporary restraining order against Brodnicki, she says he has visited her workplace at least three times to see her. She also states that Brodnicki told a physician at a Los Angeles mental health facility that he had conversations with God in which he “was thinking about killing me,” according to the documents obtained by E! Online.

Brodnicki was at the health facility during a 72-hour hold for threatening to “scratch people's eyes out” on the street, according to the court documents.

Brodnicki, who was also accused of stalking another woman in 2003, was declared unfit for trial but was found fit to stand in 2007 after multiple stints at the Elgin Mental Health Center.

In 2008 he was arrested after contacting the Des Plaines store clerk by email, saying that he knew the no-contact order had expired and he knew where she worked.

Ÿ Daily Herald wire services contributed to this report.