A Queens woman beset by mental health problems and diagnosed with bi-polar disorder was sentenced today to five years probation for sending threatening videos to Oscar-winning French actress Marion Cotillard.
Teresa Yuan, 33, apologized for sending the rambling and incoherent videotaped threats to the film star, who won an Academy Award for best actress in 2008 for her role as Edith Piaf in “La Vie en Rose.”
Among the hundreds of e-mails that Yuan e-mailed to the actress’ Internet fan site was one containing a video in which she posed an ominous question to Cotillard.
“Would you be willing to play Russian Roulette? You have only one out of six chances of being shot. You have five out of six chances of living.”
Yuan, who was arrested in 2011 and has been under a psychiatrist’s care for most of the past 1 1/2 years, told Brooklyn federal Judge William Kuntz II that she was profoundly sorry for her actions.
“I am…literally ashamed of myself. It was never my intention to to scare anybody,” Yuan said in court today.
The judge noted that Yuan is well-educated and could have a promising future – she holds an undergraduate degree from Georgetown and also earned a master’s degree – despite past episodes with homelessness and violent behavior tied to her mental illness.
“This is a tragic case,” the judge said.
But he stressed that Yuan’s videotaped messages to the actress clearly were intimidating, and observed that they seemed to coincide with moments when she failed to take prescribed psychotropic medicine.
“Anyone would have been frightened to receive these [videotaped] submissions,” the judge said. “They are a product of your refusal to take your medication.”
Kuntz said that Cotillard – who was not present at the hearing – “has been generous and forgiving” of Yuan’s misbehavior.
The judge also ordered Yuan to continue her mental health treatment under the care of a psychiatrist, and then he limited her to owning just one “Internet-capable” device – which would allow probation officers to monitor whether she had relapsed and was again sending electronic threats.
Both Assistant US Attorney Kristen Mace and defense attorney Michael Schneider had argued that probation was the appropriate sentence – given Yuan’s debilitating mental health problems.
She was arrested in the summer of 2011 by FBI agents, who immediately brought her to a hospital for treatment, officials said.
Brooklyn federal prosecutors later charged her with five counts of transmitting electronic threats to injure the actress.
mmaddux@nypost.com