A California judge granted a temporary restraining order to Apple CEO Tim Cook after the company said a Virginia woman sent him hundreds of sometimes threatening messages and appeared at his condominium in Palo Alto last year, court documents show.
The order barring the 45-year-old woman from harassing, stalking and contacting Cook was issued Friday by Santa Clara County Superior Court Judge Carol Overton.
In a petition for the order, Apple said the woman began harassing Cook in October 2020, when she is alleged to have tweeted that they were married and that Cook fathered her twin children.
The petition alleges that in October and November 2020, the woman emailed Cook 200 times with messages that showed a “significant escalation in tone” and became “threatening and highly disturbing.”
The petition alleges that in one message, the woman said she would never forget or forgive Cook. The company said in the petition that the message included a photo of what it said was a loaded handgun.
According to the petition, the woman opened dozens of corporations in Cook’s name in California, New York and Virginia, including one with “Safe Sexclinic, Cook HIV” in its name.
In an email to Cook in September, the petition alleges, the woman said: “I’m applying your roommate in Palo Alto.” The next month, she drove her Porsche SUV from Virginia to Cook’s condo, the petition says.
When she asked Cook’s security guards whether she could speak with him, they told her to leave, the petition says. After she returned 20 minutes later, the guards called police, it says. It alleges that she told authorities that she was staying locally and “could get violent.”
No weapons were found in her car during a search, according to the petition. Her SUV, for which the registration had expired, was towed, the document says.
The woman continued emailing and tweeting at Cook, asking in a message last month for $500 million cash and saying in a tweet this month that he would be “suicided in his condo,” the petition claims.
Overton granted the company’s request that the restraining order apply to Cook and all company employees. The next hearing in the case is scheduled for March 29.
The woman did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment.