Jack Jordan, a University of Chicago graduate turned drifter who lived in his car, was found guilty on Tuesday of stalking the actress Uma Thurman, the star of edgy, violent movies like “Kill Bill” and “Pulp Fiction.”



He was also found guilty of one count of second-degree aggravated harassment, but was acquitted of two additional counts of second-degree aggravated harassment.

During the jury trial in State Supreme Court in Manhattan, Mr. Jordan testified in his own defense, describing his elaborate visions — which he called the daydreams of an artistic soul — that he was predestined to meet Ms. Thurman and live a happy life with her and her two children.

The trial attracted widespread attention because Ms. Thurman testified, along with her mother, Birgitte, a former Ford model known to friends as Nena, her father, Robert, a professor of Indo-Tibetan studies at Columbia University, and her brother, Dechen.

Mr. Jordan testified for about five hours with the calm, neutral demeanor of someone at a college or job interview. His father, a nuclear physicist, and brother attended some of the trial, his lawyer said. Mr. Jordan carried an overstuffed hiking backpack to court every day, and was photographed sleeping on a street in Chelsea during the trial.

Mr. Jordan faced one count of stalking Ms. Thurman from 2005 to 2007, with a hiatus of about a year in 2006, and three counts of aggravated harassment by sending her and people around her notes and letters.

Both charges are misdemeanors, and he faces up to 90 days in jail on the stalking charge, with possibly more time for the aggravated harassment. His lawyer said that Mr. Jordan had turned down a prosecution offer to plead guilty to aggravated harassment in return for a sentence of 18 months in inpatient psychiatric treatment, which would be reduced to a violation once completed.

Under the legal definition of stalking and aggravated harassment, whether he was convicted depended a great deal on the jury’s assessment of Mr. Jordan’s and Ms. Thurman’s states of mind — whether he intended to scare her, and whether she, in turn, was reacting in a natural and predictable way by being scared of him.

Mr. Jordan testified that he never thought of himself as a stalker. He said he was engaged “in a game of cat and mouse,” with Ms. Thurman, and that he sometimes thought of her as the cat, “courting” him. He said he had seen coincidences between what happened to her characters in her movies and his own life.

He said he continued to pursue Ms. Thurman because he thought she might want to meet him, but was being prevented by an “infrastructure” of assistants and security around her. He said he never realized that she might feel threatened by the cards he sent her. “I see it now,” he said. “I’ve been shocked at how everyone responded.”

His defense lawyer, George Vomvolakis, portrayed him as a social misfit with a strange sense of humor who was meek and harmless.

Mr. Vomvolakis suggested that the jury could identify with Mr. Jordan, if they tried. “Think about your lives and what you have done in your lives in the name of love,” he urged. “Think about the stupid things you have done.”

Mr. Vomvolakis said his client was being prosecuted because the district attorney’s office was protecting a celebrity, and that Mr. Jordan’s would not have led to such charges if he had become fixated on an ordinary woman.

He urged the jury to set aside their layman’s idea of a stalker — someone who was fixated, obsessed, infatuated — essentially conceding that Mr. Jordan fit that profile. They should focus, he said, on whether Mr. Jordan had broken the law by being knowingly threatening to Ms. Thurman.

The prosecution portrayed him as a calculating, manipulative liar, who knew he was making Ms. Thurman fear for her life and that of her children.

“He wanted to be with Uma Thurman and he would not take no for an answer,” Ms. Taub said. “I mean, really, the manipulation here, you have to see it.”

Mr. Jordan, 37, one of the younger of eight children, grew up in Maryland and graduated from the University of Chicago with a literature degree in 1994. He testified that he developed a crush on Ms. Thurman, 38, after seeing her in “The Adventures of Baron Munchausen” while he was in high school.