He was a minor-league creep with a major-league obsession.
The alleged stalker of ESPN hottie Erin Andrews was a bland insurance salesman who in his spare time tracked the TV sports babe across the country and repeatedly tried to get close to her, her lawyer told The Post.
“The stalker targeted her and was obsessive in his attempt to victimize her,” Marshall Grossman said yesterday. “Clearly, Erin was the victim of a major crime.”
Michael David Barrett, 48, allegedly doctored the peepholes on hotel-room doors and made eight videotapes on a cellphone camera of a nude Andrews, which he tried to sell to the celebrity-news site TMZ.com and also put on the Internet.
Grossman said Barrett, who never had direct contact with Andrews, first tried to videotape her in Columbia, SC, in February 2008.
He allegedly got her in his sights in September 2008, when, according to a criminal complaint, he found her at a Marriott Hotel in Nashville.
“His method of operation was to learn her travel schedule . . . and then call all hotels in the area of the event,” Grossman said. “During those calls, he would ask if Erin Andrews is a guest or expected. To our shock, some hotels gave him an answer.
“The [Nashville] hotel assigned rooms to the predator and the victim in an isolated alcove which facilitated his ability to film through the altered peephole in virtual privacy,” he said.
“The hotel was a reckless accomplice.”
A hotel spokesman said it was cooperating with investigators.
Barrett, of Westmont, Ill., was nabbed Friday night in Chicago. He appeared before a federal judge yesterday and was ordered to appear in California, where the charges were filed.
“I never had any reason to believe that anything like this would happen,” Barrett’s father, Frank, 78, told the Chicago Tribune. “This is clear out of the blue.”