Because not even the daughter of a former beloved president is safe from male harassment, we now have this story: Secret Service agents detained a Brooklyn, N.Y., man last week after he showed up at a building where former first daughter Malia Obama is working as an intern and asked her to marry him.
Sources told the New York Daily News that on April 10, Jair Nilton Cardoso showed up on the fourth floor of a building in Manhattan’s Tribeca neighborhood where Obama interns, held up a sign at an office window and loudly begged her for her hand in marriage.
This isn’t the first time Cardoso has stalked Obama; agents reportedly recognized him from his previous repeated attempts to get into the White House.
The agents told Cardoso to leave the building, but he did not get the message, and two days later, he followed her out of a building in the West Village area, where she also interns.
The Daily News reports that on April 13, Secret Service agents went to Cardoso’s home to interview him, and after coming to the conclusion that he had psychiatric issues, they took him to a local hospital for an evaluation.
Secret Service agents reported Cardoso to the New York City Police Department’s 1st Precinct station house (which covers Tribeca) five days after they interviewed him, and police are reportedly deciding whether to file stalking or harassment charges against him.
Cardoso has no prior criminal record, according to police.
As previously reported by The Root, Malia Obama, who is set to begin Harvard University this fall, began an internship with the Weinstein Co. in February after vacationing with her family in Palm Springs, Calif. She has an interest in film and previously interned for the Halle Berry CBS series Extant as well as the HBO series Girls.
According to the Daily News, Obama White House staffers had expressed frustration with the way paparazzi photographed the eldest Obama daughter when she was out in public because they feared it could fuel the sort of behavior Cardoso exhibited.
Just to be clear, Malia Obama cannot even complete her internships before college peacefully because some man believes she owes him an audience and her attention, and that his creepy stalker behavior would make her want to marry him.
Read more at the New York Daily News.