New York Paralegal Blog

VENTURA - Daniel Avila, a former candidate for the Thousand Oaks City Council has been sentenced to six years and four months in prison for threatening to kill six prosecutors in the Ventura County District Attorney's office. Avila was convicted of six counts of making criminal threats and six counts of threatening public officials on April 4 in Ventura County Superior Court. He was sentenced yesterday. The case was prosecuted by Deputy Attorney General Jonathan Kline. "As the chief law enforcement officer of California," Attorney General Kamala D. Harris said, "I take very seriously any threat against prosecutors or police officers. They are the ones charged with keeping the public safe, so their own protection is doubly important, and violators must be punished. The result in this case achieves both objectives." Avila ran for the Thousand Oaks City Council in 2004, and was charged with hacking into the Verizon wireless system and sending bogus text messa...

WASHINGTON – The Justice Department announced today that Vincent Johnson of Brick, N.J., was sentenced to 50 months in prison and three years supervised release for sending a series of threatening email communications to employees of five civil rights organizations that work to improve opportunities for, and challenge discrimination against, Latinos in the United States. Johnson was also ordered to pay a fine of $10,000. Johnson, 61, who went by the internet pseudonym “Devilfish,” pleaded guilty on Oct. 20, 2010, to 10 counts related to threatening conduct towards the victims, who included employees of the LatinoJustice Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund; the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund; the National Council of La Raza; the League of United Latin American Citizens; and the National Coalition of Latino Clergy and Christian Leaders. Johnson admitted that between November 2006 and February 2009, he emailed numerous threats to the victims to preve...

PHILADELPHIA—Today, Norman LeBoon, 38, of Philadelphia, was sentenced to 24 months in prison, to be followed by three years’ supervised release, for threatening United States Congressman Eric Cantor (7th District Virginia) and a member of his family, announced United States Attorney Zane David Memeger. LeBoon pleaded guilty in November 16, 2010 to threatening Congressman Cantor and transmitting in interstate commerce a threatening communication. These charges arise from LeBoon’s production and transmission of a YouTube video over the Internet on March 26, 2010 containing a threat to injure and kill. According to an affidavit in support of the warrant for LeBoon’s arrest issued on March 28, 2010, LeBoon transmitted a video over the Internet on YouTube, in which he stated:

PHILADELPHIA - Acting Assistant Attorney General for the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division Grace Chung Becker, and Acting U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania Laurie Magid announced the filing of a one count criminal complaint charging William Gould with interference with employment by threat of violence, a Class A misdemeanor. The complaint alleges that Gould placed a hangman’s noose in an area where his African-American colleague would find it, in an attempt to interfere with his colleague’s federally protected employment activity, and because the colleague was African-American. The complaint alleges that on Aug. 11, 2008, Gould fashioned and placed a hangman’s noose in a workspace at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, where he worked. Approximately two weeks earlier, Children’s Hospital had announced the acceptance of that African-American colleague into a management training program specifically focused on hiring and promoting minority employees. Go...