Feb. 13--A Cook County judge has acquitted a former collegiate tennis coach from Australia of charges that he stalked a former girlfriend and threatened to post nude photos of her online.
Associate Judge Domenica Stephenson on Wednesday found Mark T. Henderson, 33, not guilty of aggravated stalking, cyberstalking and phone harassment charges after a bench trial at the Leighton Criminal Court Building.
Henderson, a former top-ranked junior tennis player in Australia who later taught at several U.S. colleges including Northwestern University, was arrested in May 2014 on charges he accosted the former girlfriend on a North Side street and threatened to kill her.
The woman also told authorities that Henderson had harassed her online and by phone for months and threatened to post nude photos she'd taken if she didn't send him more, authorities said at the time he was charged.
At trial, Henderson's attorneys introduced months of online correspondence between the former couple that they said illustrated their on-again, off-again relationship had never been violent or threatening.
"You had to read it (the instant messages) like it was a novel," Thomas Leinenweber, one of Henderson's attorneys, said Friday. "You couldn't just pick out one line here or one line there. It was more the story of their relationship."
A representative from the state's attorney's office was unavailable for comment Friday because it was a court holiday.
While clearing Henderson of the criminal charges, Stephenson granted a protective order barring Henderson from communicating with the former girlfriend, according to court records.
Henderson, who was released on $50,000 bail while awaiting trial, was returning Friday to his native Australia, Leinenweber said.
wlee@tribpub.com
