A Greenville, South Carolina, man pleaded guilty on Friday for sending a threatening letter to a federal judge that read, in part, “I have watched you leave the courthouse numerous times and plotted to get my revenge.”
Authorities say the handwritten letter goes on to say, “you best to make sure they lock me away for good cause I’m going to kill you or blow that courthouse up.”
That man, Alvin Parks, was already being held at the Greenville County Detention Center on other charges.
Judge Laura Beyer, who sits on the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Charlotte, North Carolina, told ABC News that the case, while not involving a bankruptcy judge, is a reminder that “these threats are real.”
“I think we all feel pretty protected at the courthouses when we are here, but it’s the unknown threat, when we are away from the federal courthouse,” she said.
The incident, just one of the skyrocketing number of threats to federal judges, underscores just how dangerous the judicial profession has gotten.
The cases before federal bankruptcy court judges, in particular, deal with very personal issues, from divorce proceedings to someone’s business and that could raise someone’s temperature, according to two