Texas Man Sentenced on Interstate Threat Charge

DAVENPORT, IA—On June 8, 2012, Stacey Gale Jackson, age 42, of Odessa, Texas, was sentenced to 15 months of imprisonment for one count of transmitting an interstate threat, announced United States Attorney Nicholas A. Klinefeldt. United States Chief District Judge James E. Gritzner also ordered Jackson to serve a term of three years’ supervised release and to pay an assessment of $100 to Crime Victims Fund.

At his guilty plea, Jackson admitted that on October 18, 2011, he called the victim over 50 times on her cell phone and home phone. The victim recorded one call. In it, Jackson made various threats to the victim, her family, and members of her military unit. Some of the more threatening language in the call included the following:

• “And you know what, sooner or later, when she breaks communication, when I don’t have that, I’m going to resort to more extreme measures...”
• Victim: “Is that a threat?” Defendant: “No, it’s a promise.”
• “Well, you better take it real serious—I’m very unstable, I asked her for some help, she won’t—she promised me she would help me...and I expect her to keep her promise.”
• “You know what, it would really suck if something happened to innocent people like you or your kid or your husband or some member of your unit or anybody...”
• You wonder why innocent people—y’know, like Columbine—why did all of them innocent people get shot up?

In 2010, Jackson was involved in a stand-off with Scott County law enforcement authorities during which he fired what he called a “warning shot” at officers.

This investigation was conducted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the case was prosecuted by the United States Attorney’s Office, Southern District of Iowa.