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Press Release

State Inmate Sentenced to 70 Months for Threatening Judge

For Immediate Release
U.S. Attorney's Office, Northern District of Florida

TALLAHASSEE, FLORIDA – Michael Dean Drew, 43, originally from Jacksonville but now an inmate of the Florida Department of Corrections, was sentenced to 70 months in federal prison today for mailing a threatening letter to a federal judge with the intent to extort a thing of value.  United States District Judge Robert Hinkle imposed this sentence consecutively to Drew’s 30-year state sentence for dealing in stolen property and to Drew’s 28-month federal sentence for threatening a different federal judge.  The sentence was announced by Christopher P. Canova, Acting United States Attorney for the Northern District of Florida.

Drew pled guilty to the current charge on December 2, 2015.  Court records show that Drew committed the stolen property offense in Jacksonville, less than two months after his release from the Florida Department of Corrections.  He received the 30-year sentence under Florida’s Prison Release Reoffender law.  In 2006, Drew challenged the 30-year sentence in federal court in Jacksonville.  Relief was denied in 2009.  In 2011, Drew sent threatening letters to the federal judge who denied him relief and to a Florida Assistant Attorney General involved in those proceedings.  Drew was charged with mailing threatening communications in U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida and sentenced to 28 months in prison in 2012.

In June 2015, Drew sent threatening letters to the federal judge who presided over his 2012 prosecution, still seeking relief on the underlying state conviction.  He was being held at the Wakulla Correctional Institution when he wrote the letters.  Drew will be returned to the Florida Department of Corrections, so that he will complete his state sentence first.  Thereafter, he will serve his federal sentences in the Federal Bureau of Prisons.

Acting United States Attorney Canova praised the work of the United States Marshals Service, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, and the Florida Department of Corrections, whose joint investigation led to the conviction in this case.  This case was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Michael T. Simpson.

The United States Attorney's Office for the Northern District of Florida is one of 94 offices that serve as the nation’s principal litigators under the direction of the Attorney General.  The office strives to protect and serve the citizens of the Northern District of Florida through the ethical, vigorous, and impartial enforcement of the laws of the United States, to defend the national security, to improve the safety and quality of life in our communities through the protection of civil rights, and to protect the public funds and financial assets of the United States.  To access available public court documents online, please visit the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Florida website.  For more information about the United States Attorney’s Office, Northern District of Florida, visit http://www.justice.gov/usao/fln/index.html.

For more information, contact:
Amy Alexander, Public Information Officer
(850) 216-3854, amy.alexander@usdoj.gov

Updated March 7, 2016

Topic
Violent Crime