By Shayna Jacobs
DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
MANHATTAN CRIMINAL COURT — A man charged with stalking Caroline Kennedy's daughter by sending incessant love notes and gifts over the course of several years needs psychiatric help, but isn't dangerous, his lawyer argued Friday.
Naaem Ahmed, 41, underwent an initial psychiatric evaluation following his arrest that revealed he's not a threat, according to Ahmed's lawyer, Gerald Hertz. But Ahmed will still have to undergo a new battery of psychological tests to determine whether he is competent to stand trial, a judge ruled Friday.
Hertz has maintained that Ahmed, a Pakistani native and naturalized citizen who was training to be a cab driver, didn't know he was doing anything wrong when he sent endless streams of e-cards, flowers, balloons and letters to Tatiana Schlossberg in which he referred to himself as her "hubby."
The notes were never blocked by the Kennedy-Schlossberg family until one day, after years, a security guard asked Ahmed to back off, Hertz said.
"He was encouraged by them accepting [the gifts] and not saying anything," Hertz said. "He never understood that this was criminal."
"He's very depressed because he doesn't understand why he's in jail," the lawyer added.
Hertz previously told reporters that the obsession with the Kennedy family, specifically 20-year-old Schlossberg, currently a Yale undergraduate, started eight years ago. Hertz could not explain how the obsession started.
Prosecutors said Ahmed even traveled to the Kennedy-Schlossberg home to try to see the family in person.
Ahmed faces harassment and stalking charges and has been held on $25,000 bail since his arrest on Dec. 8. He is scheduled to return to court on Feb. 2.
