Woman Sentenced Federally for Mailing Death Threats While Serving State Sentence

POCATELLO—Linda Joyce Lakes, 54, of Pocatello, Idaho, was sentenced today to 12 months in prison followed by three years of supervised release for mailing threatening communications, U.S. Attorney Wendy J. Olson announced. U.S. District Judge Edward J. Lodge also imposed a no contact order with the victims. Lakes pleaded guilty to the charge in November 2012.

According to court records, from November 2010 to July 2012, Lakes wrote six letters in which she threatened to injure and kill a man from her past. At the time Lakes wrote the letters, she was incarcerated at the Pocatello Women’s Correctional Center. Lakes continued writing the letters even after being given a direct order to stop contacting the target of her letters. In the letters, Lakes counted down the days until she was to be released from prison and would be able to act out her threats. When interviewed by an agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Lakes admitted writing and mailing the letters and said she wanted to kill the man when she wrote the letters. Later, Lakes wrote another letter in which she said she knew it was a federal offense to send threatening letters in the mail but did it anyway, because she “doesn’t care.”

The case was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, with assistance by the Idaho Department of Correction.