The United States Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Pennsylvania announced that a former Pennsylvania state prison inmate was sentenced today by Senior U.S. District Court Judge James M. Munley to 48 months in prison for mailing a letter threatening to injure and kill a Monroe County Common Pleas Judge.
According to United States Attorney Peter Smith, the defendant, Devon Williams, age 25, previously admitted that while he was an inmate at the State Correctional Institution in Albion, Pennsylvania, he mailed a letter from the prison in January 2014 to the judge’s chambers at the Monroe County Courthouse in Stroudsburg. The letter threatened harm and death to the judge. Williams pleaded guilty on Dec. 17, 2014.
Williams was indicted by a federal grand jury in September 2014, as a result of an investigation by the United States Postal Inspection Service and the Pennsylvania State Police.
In imposing sentence, Judge Munley noted the defendant’s history of violence, the serious nature of the crime, the impact on the victim of the crime, and the need to protect the public and deter others from committing similar crimes.
Judge Munley ordered the defendant to be placed on three years of supervised release following his prison sentence.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Francis P. Sempa prosecuted the case.
Source: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the United States Attorneys
