Julie Lee Choi consented to the deal
negotiated with Apple during an appearance in Santa Clara County Superior
Court. Cook, Apple's CEO for the past decade, wasn't present at the proceeding
held in San Jose, California.
Choi, 45, declined to comment after the
hearing while angrily waving off two reporters taking her picture outside the
courthouse. An Apple lawyer also declined to discuss the stipulation.
The court order requires Choi to refrain
from coming within 200 yards of Cook during the next three years and prohibits
her from attempting to communicate with him through any electronic means,
including on Twitter accounts or emails. If she violates the terms, Choi could
face criminal charges and potentially imprisoned.
The bizarre case traces back to late 2020
when Choi began emailing Cook begging him to have sex with her and attaching
images of handguns that she insisted he had made her buy, according to evidence
that Apple submitted to obtain a temporary restraining order against her in
January. Those documents also revealed Choi had set up a series of bogus
companies trying to connect her to Cook, sometimes listing an Apple office as
the headquarters.
“I can't live like this anymore," Choi
wrote in one email to Cook sent from an iPhone. “I want sex with you, please,
please."
Cook has publicly said he is a gay man, but
even after Choi acknowledges knowing that her entreaties to him continued.
“Tim, if we are destined for our lives, any circumstance we can meet each
other," Choi wrote in a December email that also told him where she was
staying in San Jose at that time.
Apple took legal action after Choi told him
last September that she intended to apply to become his “roommate” at his
condominium located in Palo Alto, California — about 15 miles from Apple's
headquarters in Cupertino, California.
In October, Choi showed up outside Cook's
home on two separate actions and warned she “could get violent," according
to court documents.
Then, in another December email, Choi told
Cook she would forgive him for $500 million in cash.
A few weeks after that, Apple sought its
temporary restraining order in a request that contended Choi “may be
armed" and “intends to return to Apple's CEO residence or locate him
otherwise in the near future." Choi had been living in McLean, Virginia
before she began shadowing Cook in Silicon Valley.
Apple paid more than $630,000 for security
measures designed to protect Cook last year, according to a required company
disclosure to shareholders.