Press Release
DEFENDANT SENTENCED TO 25 YEARS' FOR MAILING THREATENING COMMUNICATIONS TO FORMER GIRLFRIEND
June 7, 2007
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
R. Alexander Acosta, United States Attorney for the Southern District of Florida, and Julie Torres, Special Agent in Charge, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, announced today that on June 5, 2007, defendant, Jeffrey Allen Lucas, 46, was sentenced by U.S. District Court Judge Donald M. Middlebrooks to a total of twenty-five (25) years' imprisonment for mailing threatening communications to his former girlfriend between 2000 and 2005, in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 876. The defendant's sentence is to run consecutive to his prior fifteen (15) year federal sentence for unlawful destruction of the victim's residence by fire and mailing other threatening communications to her. The sentence followed Lucas's March 27, 2007 plea of guilty to twenty (20) counts of the Indictment. Lucas had previously pled guilty to 20 counts of mailing threatening communications, in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 876(c).
According to the evidence presented at the plea and sentencing hearings, the original case began on October 8, 1992, when Lucas broke into the victim's Jupiter, Florida, residence and set it on fire, almost destroying it. Lucas, while in possession of a shotgun, then drove to the victim's workplace and waited for her to return. The police located him there and arrested him. Lucas has remained in custody since that day. After October 8, 1992 and while incarcerated in various state and federal prisons, Lucas continued to write and mail threatening communications to the victim. These communications contained graphic threats to kill the victim and her children. On June 18, 1999, Lucas was sentenced to fifteen (15) years in two federal cases and ordered by a federal judge not to correspond or communicate by mail with the victim or any member of her family.
In violation of the Court's order, from 2000 to 2005, the defendant continued his threatening letter campaign against the victim by mailing 120 threatening letters to the victim's residence from various prisons where he was incarcerated. The volume and content of the letters caused the victim to live in constant fear for her family's safety and well-being.
Mr. Acosta commended the investigative efforts of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. The case was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorneys Janice Le Clainche and Nancy Vorpe Quinlan.
A copy of this press release may be found on the website of the United States Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Florida at http://www.usdoj.gov/usao/fls. Related court documents and information may be found on the website of the District Court for the Southern District of Florida at http://www.flsd.uscourts.gov or on http://pacer.flsd.uscourts.gov.
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