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IDOC Inmate Pleads Guilty to Making Violent Threats

U.S. Attorney’s Office October 08, 2009
  • Central District of Illinois (217) 492-4450

ROCK ISLAND, IL—An Illinois Department of Corrections inmate pled guilty today to four counts of sending threatening letters to judges and state prosecutors in three Illinois counties. Sentencing for Lewis L. Clark, 20, has been scheduled on January 28, 2010, at 11:00 a.m. before U.S. District Judge Michael M. Mihm in Rock Island. Each count of mailing threatening communications carries a statutory penalty of up to five years in federal prison.

Clark entered an open plea of guilty to the four counts as charged in an indictment returned by the grand jury in March 2009. Clark admitted he sent letters containing murder threats to judges and prosecutors in Henry county, Adams county and Vermillion county. Clark, also known as “Chico,” is currently serving a four-year sentence in the Illinois Department of Corrections for a 2006 conviction in Henry county, Illinois, for the aggravated battery of a correctional institution employee, according to court documents.

Clark pled guilty to the allegations as charged in the indictment that letters from Clark were received as follows:

  • December 31, 2008, at the Henry County Courthouse at Cambridge, Illinois, a letter to an Illinois Circuit Judge of the 14th Judicial Circuit which contained a threat to murder the Judge and the Circuit Clerk because the Judge had denied Clark’s petition for post-conviction relief;
  • January 21, 2009, at the Henry County Courthouse, a letter to an Illinois Circuit Judge of the 14th Judicial Circuit which contained a threat to murder the Judge, the Circuit Clerk, and others, because the judge had denied Clark’s petition for post-conviction relief and because police had been notified concerning a previous letter Clark had sent to the Judge;
  • January 22, 2009, at the Adams County Courthouse in Quincy, Illinois, a letter containing a threat to murder an Illinois Circuit Judge of the 8th Judicial Circuit and the Adams County State’s Attorney, and;
  • January 22, 2009, at the Vermillion County Courthouse in Danville, Illinois, a letter containing a threat to murder two Assistant State’s Attorneys.

The charges were the result of a coordinated investigation by the Internal Affairs Unit of the Illinois Department of Corrections at the Pontiac Correctional Center; Illinois State Police; Federal Bureau of Investigation; Henry County State’s Attorney’s Office; Livingston County State’s Attorney’s Office; Henry County Sheriff’s Department; Adams County Sheriff’s Department; and the Vermillion County Sheriff’s Department. The case is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael D. McCoy.

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