Tony Stewart stalker arrested

Tony Stewart’s stalker arrested following alleged violation of a protective order, terroristic mischief and intimidation

Kathi Russell is a 68-year-old woman from Florida. She has been arrested after allegedly stalking former NASCAR driver and current team co-owner Tony Stewart.

Kathi Russell charges include; stalking, violating a protective order, terroristic mischief and intimidation.

According the court documents Russell, “felt like she was ignored” as Stewart denied her request for an autograph at a NASCAR race track.

Kathi Russell
Kathi Russell

Following the denied autograph session, Kathi Russell allegedly took a different direction regarding contact with Tony Stewart. She began making calls, a dozen at a time.

According to court documents, many of those calls featured audio from a song titled ‘Psycho Killer’ from the Talking Heads. Other calls featured audio playback from Hillary Clinton stating, “We came, we saw, he died” and more calls featured only a muted caller.

The calls weren’t only directly as Tony Stewart himself. Russell also took it upon herself to call media outlets regarding Tony Stewart. Beyond that, Russell also called Tony’s mother as well as his sister. Other calls were made to his sponsors and NASCAR drivers.

I do believe we received one of those very calls around January. RacingNews.co received a call from a woman stating that we should issue a PSA warning that “Tony Stewart is coming back to the dirt tracks and drivers should renew their insurance.” The caller continued stating, “You’d be doing a service to the community.”

I hung up as she began to ramble. Those calls may or may not have been from the same woman. Based on the tone, timeline and context of these police reports, I’d say it likely was the same person.

Tony Stewart and Kevin Harvick
Tony Stewart and Kevin Harvick celebrate a win at Texas Motor Speedway

Tony Stewart stated the calls to his phone were made, “with no purpose other than to harass.” He stated there was no time table for the calls, they came at all hours of the day and night. In addition, many came the night before race day.

Recently, the DEA was tipped by a caller that Tony Stewart’s plane was carrying drugs on board. The DEA located the plane in Fort Worth, Texas and engaged in a search. Nothing was discovered in the search. The DEA now believes that tip was introduced from a Kathi Russell phone call.

The alleged harassment began in March 2016. It continued through October 2017.

Kathi Russell was arrested in Cape Coral, Florida on Tuesday. She has since been transported back to Marion County, Indiana. She is being held on $30,000 bond.

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Tony Stewart | Stewart-Haas Racing | Marian County Sheriff | NASCAR

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