Alleged Taylor Swift stalker arrested for third time in five days

A man accused of stalking Taylor Swift was arrested again today (24 January), just hours after facing a judge in relation to his previous arrest.

David Crowe, 33, has been arrested three times in five days near Swift’s townhouse in the Tribeca neighbourhood of New York City.

Law enforcement sources told NBC New York that the 33-year-old Crowe was released from court just before noon on Wednesday, before being arrested once again shortly after 1:30 pm.

Prosecutors allege that Crowe has repeatedly returned to the pop star’s home. According to court documents, he has been seen there 30 times in the past two months.

Crowe was asked about 10 times to not to approach the building or to leave, according to the complaint.

In seeking supervised release related to Crowe’s last arrest, Assistant District Attorney Harriet Jiranek said his “continued conduct in showing up to this location despite numerous directives to leave shows a clear risk that the defendant will not abide by court orders to return to court”.

12-time Grammy winner Swift, 34, has been the target of several stalkers over the years at her properties in New York, California and Rhode Island.

In 2018, Frank Andrew Hoover was sentenced to 10 years probation, two years after being arrested for violating a restraining order Swift had taken out against him after he allegedly stalked her after a concert in October 2016.

A 26-year-old man was charged with trespassing after breaking into Swift’s beach-front mansion in Rhode Island, in 2019. It was Westerly police department’s third arrest in the space of a few months related to unauthorised men seeking access to the property.

In 2019, a man who served jail time for breaking into her Manhattan townhouse was arrested for doing it again.

Roger Alvarado, 23, of Homestead, Florida, had allegedly “ransacked” the place after climbing a ladder to a second-floor patio and smashing a glass door to get inside.

He was sentenced to two to four years in prison in April that year after pleading guilty to violating his probation.

A federal judge sentenced Eric Swarbrick to 30 months in prison in 2020, after he pleaded guilty to stalking Swift, as well as to sending threatening letters and emails to her former record label, Big Machine Label Group.

Swarbrick also expressed his desire to rape and kill Swift and said he would kill himself in front of her label’s CEO and staff.

In 2021, an alleged stalker who claimed that Swift was communicating with him on social media was arrested for trespassing after trying to break into her Manhattan apartment.

In 2022, alleged stalker Joshua Christian was arrested and charged with stalking and criminal trespass by the NYPD after several run-ins with Swift and her security team. A judge issued a full order of protection for him to stay away from Swift.

In a 2019 essay for Elle magazine, Swift wrote about her experiences of being stalked and harassed, revealing that she carried army-grade bandage dressing for gunshot or stab wounds.“Websites and tabloids have taken it upon themselves to post every home address I’ve ever had online,” she said. “You get enough stalkers trying to break into your house and you [start] prepping for bad things.”

Additional reporting by The Associated Press