Man accused of threatening celebrity

A suspect is arrested after a postal worker hands over improperly addressed letters to actor Alicia Silverstone.

By SARAH SCHWEITZER

© St. Petersburg Times, published July 3, 1999

TAMPA -- A 40-year-old Valrico man with a history of schizophrenia was charged Friday with mailing threatening letters to actor Alicia Silverstone.

According to federal investigators, Joseph Speh Jr. of 104 Valrico Station Road wrote more than two dozen letters to Silverstone, whose film credits include Clueless and Batman and Robin.

In the letters, investigators say, Speh described sexual acts he hoped to perform on her, along with violent acts he claimed to have committed on her behalf. In one letter, Spey said he had killed 12 police officers.

Speh's wife, Brenda, told the Times that her husband had expressed interest in other movie stars in the past, including Winona Ryder.

"He just said she's pretty and I wouldn't mind going out with her," said Brenda Speh, who has been separated from her husband of 17 years since February. "I knew his condition, so I just let it slide."

Since she met him in New York, Brenda Speh said her husband has collected veterans disability compensation based on a schizophrenia diagnosis. Federal investigators say Speh has been committed twice under the Baker Act.

Speh also has a criminal history. In 1996 he was convicted on a misdemeanor charge of cruelty to a child, according to federal investigators, and in February he was arrested on a charge of domestic violence.

Speh's letter writing came to light when a postal worker gave several dozen improperly addressed letters without a return address to the manager of Speh's apartment complex. Some of the letters were addressed to Silverstone.

The manager, Kathy Camant, opened the letters to see who had written them, investigators said, but the author had not signed his name. Nevertheless, Camant suspected Speh and when he filled out a maintenance work order for repairs to his apartment, she compared his handwriting with that in the letters.

On June 29, Camant saw Speh taking a bundle of letters to the mailbox, and 30 minutes later a postal worker handed her seven improperly addressed letters, investigators said. The letters contained sexual references to Silverstone and claims that the author had killed several people, including one at a Brandon movie theater and another at a gas station.

Federal officials arrested Speh on Friday at his Valrico apartment. Friday evening, he was being held without bail at the Hillsborough County Jail.

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