Incarcerated man sentenced to more prison time for threats mailed to federal judges, others

Aug. 22 (UPI) -- A man who threatened to kill federal judges, U.S. marshals and federal prosecutors via letters he sent from prison, has been sentenced to an additional 20 years behind bars, the Justice Department announced Thursday.

Michael Dean Drew, 51, was sentenced to serve two decades to run consecutively to the term he is currently serving. He had been arrested and sentenced 5 times for sending similar letters to federal judges, assistant U.S. attorneys, and federal law enforcement officers.

"The public officials who work to keep our country safe and uphold the rule of law should not have to fear for their lives or the lives of their families," Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a Justice Department statement. "This sentence should make clear that the Justice Department has no tolerance for violence or threats of violence against public servants."

Officials said Drew mailed a letter in May 2023 to a federal judge in Florida and threatened that the judge would "die a violent death for presiding over a particular criminal case."

In August 2023, Drew mailed two letters to the federal courthouse in Miami, in which he threatened another federal judge and members of the U.S. Marshal Service, Justice officials said.

In each of the letters, Drew described how he was recruiting other people to violently murder the judge and members of the U.S. Marshal Service, the Justice Department said.

In September 2023, while behind bars, Drew sent letters in Florida to assistant U.S. attorneys in Virginia and Georgia claiming that he had recruited gang members and members of the Aryan Nation to "carry out the violent murder of the assistant U.S. attorneys and their family members."

"In all the letters, Drew expressed his sincere intent to carry out the threats and described in detail how each of the victims would die," the Justice Department release said.

In one letter, Drew wrote that he would "take great pleasure in knowing you will suffer and die" and that the judge's body would be "discarded as a piece of trash, thrown in a ditch." Other letters to officials included similarly violent threats and made claims that he was recruiting members of the Aryan Nation to murder as many U.S. marshals as possible.

Drew claimed in his letters that the violence against the officials was in retaliation for their roles in the justice system.

Drew pleaded guilty in June to five counts of mailing threatening communications.