No bail for accused DeGarmo stalker

updated 10:38 a.m. ET April 9, 2009

MELBOURNE, Australia - An Australian woman charged with stalking "American Idol" contestant Diana DeGarmo over the Internet was refused bail Thursday by a judge who said she was likely to re-offend.

Tanya Maree Quattrocchi, 23, was convicted in 2007 of cyber-stalking and blackmailing DeGarmo and sentenced to serve 150 hours of community service. She was arrested again in January on six new charges of cyber-stalking the singer, her mother and her roommate in the United States.

Police allege Quattrocchi interfered with DeGarmo's e-mails, accessed her MySpace account 700 times in eight months and sent electronic messages to the American star between last May and January this year.

DeGarmo was runner-up in the 2004 season of "American Idol" and has since released an album. She also appeared on Broadway in "Hairspray."

Senior Sergeant Graham Banks said Quattrocchi's victims felt they had endured a nonstop, three-year attack. He told the Melbourne Magistrates' Court that the suspect was at risk of committing further offenses and interfering with witnesses if she were granted bail.

Quattrocchi's mother offered to quit her job and stay with her daughter 24 hours a day to ensure she did not have access to the Internet if she were released.

"Tanya is not a bad person, she might have made a stupid mistake and I want to help her," Lina Quattrocchi told the court Thursday. "I can't see her surviving prison life. She just doesn't fit in there."

But deputy chief magistrate Dan Muling ruled that the risk of re-offending was too great and remanded Quattrocchi to custody until her next court appearance May 11.

Details of the charges against her were not available.

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