Inmate Sentenced to Five Years in Federal Prison for Making Violent Threats to Judges, Prosecutors
| U.S. Attorney’s Office April 01, 2010 |
ROCK ISLAND, IL—An Illinois Department of Corrections inmate was sentenced today to serve five years in federal prison for sending threatening letters to judges and state prosecutors in three Illinois counties. Lewis L. Clark, 21, is currently serving a four-year sentence for a 2006 conviction in Henry County, Illinois, for aggravated battery of a correctional institution employee. U.S. District Judge Michael M. Mihm ordered that Clark’s federal prison sentence be served consecutive to his current incarceration in the Illinois Department of Corrections.
On Oct. 8, 2009, Clark entered an open plea of guilty to four counts of sending threatening communications 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 pled guilty to the allegations as charged in the indictment that letters from Clark were received as follows:
Dec. 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;
Jan. 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;
Jan. 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;
Jan. 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 was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael D. McCoy.