Jury Finds Man Guilty of Threatening a Federal Judge

Pensacola, Florida - Christopher Summers, 58, an inmate at the Florida Department of Corrections, was found guilty in federal court of mailing threatening communications to a federal judge. The conviction was announced by John P. Heekin, United States Attorney for the Northern District of Florida.

U.S. Attorney Heekin said: "When threatening statements exceed the legal bounds of constitutional Free Speech, my office will not hesitate to aggressively prosecute those criminal threats to ensure they do not have the opportunity to ripen into acts of violence. Criminal threats directed at public officials are becoming alarmingly more common, and this must stop now. We have zero-tolerance for such criminality in the Northern District of Florida and will seek maximum punishments to keep our public officials safe."

Court documents and evidence presented at trial revealed that in October 2024, Summers sent a handwritten letter addressed to a Federal District Judge at the Federal Courthouse in Pensacola, Florida. In the letter, Summers wrote in relevant part:

"I am writing this letter to you in hopes that you will know what it feels like to be helpless when you know for fact that you're going to either be beaten so badly you'll never function like a normal person again, or be killed. I'm very driven to have you killed, even if I've got to do it myself when I get out and back to Pensacola. I thought I'd have to wait until I got out, but now that I've thought about it I realize that I can have it done now. As soon as I leave this prison and get back to my perminet [sic] camp I'll get on one of the many cell-phones there and green light a hit on you … Hell if I have to I'd shoot your head off as you pull in to that gate at the Court house, I can do it from that park next door. I don't care if I get more time or even killed. As long as I get you first. So how dose [sic] it feel to know who is going to be responsible [sic] for your life, yet not be able to stop it or do anything about it?"

At trial, counsel for Summers claimed that Summers wrote the letter as part of his mental health therapy, and that Summers never intended to mail the letter. However, the Government's case revealed that mental health therapy did not include threatening letters; that the prison takes steps to ensure that inmates do not inadvertently send letters to the courts; and that Summers told another inmate his desire to have the Judge killed. The jury swiftly returned a guilty verdict.

The defendant faces up to 10 years' imprisonment. Sentencing is scheduled for August 6, 2026, before United States District Court Judge T. Kent Wetherell, II, in Pensacola, Florida.

This conviction was the result of a joint investigation by the United States Marshals Service and the Federal Bureau of Investigation with assistance from the Florida Department of Corrections Office of Inspector General. Assistant United States Attorney Joseph A. Ravelo is prosecuting the case.

The United States Attorney's Office for the Northern District of Florida is one of 94 offices that serve as the nation's principal litigators under the direction of the Attorney General. To access public court documents online, please visit the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of FloridaLinks to other government and non-government sites will typically appear with the "external link" icon to indicate that you are leaving the Department of Justice website when you click the link. website. For more information about the United States Attorney's Office for the Northern District of Florida, visit https://www.justice.gov/usao-ndfl.