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37-year-old US woman found guilty of threatening to murder Stephen Hawking

She was tried after refusing to be seen by an expert called in to evaluate her state of mind.

THE WOMEN ARRESTED over death threats to Stephen Hawking was given a four month prison suspended prison sentence today after confessing to her crime at a speedy trial.

She was released from custody after agreeing to a restraining order preventing her from going within 500 metres of the British scientist or trying to communicate with him for the next eight months.

She was tried after refusing to be seen by an expert called in to evaluate her state of mind.

The woman who was convicted of a crime of serious threats has been named locally as Jennifer Theresa Contonio.

She is an American who lives in Norway and a source close to the case described her as “ultra orthodox and very religious”.

Under Spanish law she could have been sentenced to up to two years in jail.
The sentence was suspended as she was a first-time offender in Spain.

A court source confirmed, “The American citizen arrested for threatening Stephen Hawking has been released because the four month prison sentence she received was suspended as she didn’t have a criminal record in Spain.

As part of her sentence she is prevented from going within 500 metres of Professor Hawking and communicating with him via any means during an eight-month period.

“She has agreed to the sentence and recognised that she committed a crime of serious threats.”

Police confirmed in a press release issued just before the sentence was made public that she was 37 years old, not 41 as initially thought.

The press release said: “She had been pursuing Mr Hawking throughout the world and in the last few days had sent him grave threats through social media and to his personal email.

In the various emails he received she outlined plans to end his life during the scientific conference being held in Tenerife.

“Because of the information contained in the emails, it appeared the person sending them could have been inside the conference venue.”

The crime she was convicted of covers threats to carry out crimes against someone including murder, wounding, rape and torture.

Read: Family concerned for missing man who may be in Donegal>

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    Mute Tony Stamper
    Favourite Tony Stamper
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    Sep 7th 2011, 12:13 PM

    Merkel – Germany and France wanted the Euro, even though economist after economist pointed out the massive flaws in it, the fatal contradictions, benefited massively from replacing the DM with a weaker currency, leading to a massive export boon for your state.

    Your country made it, ignored the economic reality, and now you aren’t willing to accept responsibility for the mess that was always inevitable. You are playing internal German political games to benefit yourself, and taking economic decisions at an EU level, to benefit Germany alone.

    European Union – My ass!

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    Mute Sean McGrath
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    Sep 7th 2011, 12:31 PM

    Tony, you are definitely right but its up to us to play the same game which we were trying to do but we got way to far ahead of ourselves, prices went too high on everything, wages went too high, everything went too high. I can remember national news celebrating that we were spending a billion a week a few yrs ago. Can’t blame ze Germans for that or the house prices….

    One thing we can take from this debacle is that the ECB is in Frankfurt for a reason and they are only looking out for Germany and France so we need to watch our own back from now on and play a smarter game.

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    Mute Neil
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    Sep 7th 2011, 3:21 PM

    @tony

    While there’s nothing more Irish than blaming others for our problems, it’s not really Germanys fault we are in the mess we are in. And I can understand German taxpayers not wanting to bailout countries like Ireland. The Finns hate that as well.

    Finland is a small country as well, and they have the euro, and they didn’t build up a huge governement expenditure on a property bubble.

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    Mute Gis Bayertz
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    Sep 7th 2011, 6:23 PM

    Spot on, Tony

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    Mute Sean O'Keeffe
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    Sep 7th 2011, 2:00 PM

    In the early eighteenth century, to develop its new colonies France issued a fiat currency under the guidance of the Scot, John Law. This currency was shortlived and imploded with the Mississippi bubble.
    While many people lost heavily, one canny Irishman, Richard Cantilion, pulled out of the project before its demise.
    Like Cantillon, Ireland would be well advised to consider what its best options are and not leave it too late.
    http://mises.org/daily/4709

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    Mute Sean O'Keeffe
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    Sep 7th 2011, 2:07 PM

    In the early Eighteenth century, to develop its colonies France issued a fiat currency under the guidance of Scot, John Law. This currency was shortlived and implode with the bust of the Mississippi bubble.
    Many people lost heavily. However, one canny Irishman, Richard Cantillon, who had been heavily involved withdrew before the project collapsed.
    Like Cantillon, Ireland would be well advised to see where his fiat currency project is going and not leave it too late to leave.
    http://mises.org/daily/4709

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