Woman sentenced for threatening parent of Sandy Hook victim

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla.—A Florida woman pleaded guilty and was sent to prison Wednesday for threatening a man whose 6-year-old son was killed in the 2012 mass shooting at a Connecticut school, which she contended was a hoax.

Senior U.S. District Judge James Cohn sentenced Lucy Richards, 57, to five months in prison, followed by five months of home detention. She pleaded guilty to interstate transmission of a threat to injure in communications with Lenny Pozner, the father of Noah Pozner, who died in the Sandy Hook school shooting in Newtown, Connecticut.

Cohn called Richards’ actions toward Pozner “disturbing” and said no one should cite a conspiracy theory or belief in a hoax in the deaths of 20 children and six adults that occurred at the school.

“I’m sure he wishes this was false and he could embrace Noah, hear Noah’s heartbeat and hear Noah say ‘I love you, Dad’,” Cohn told Richards. “Your words were cruel and insensitive. This is reality and there is no fiction. There are no alternative facts.”

Investigators say Richards made four voicemail and email threats to Pozner on Jan. 10, 2016, after viewing internet sites claiming the shooting was a hoax aimed at curtailing Americans’ Second Amendment gun ownership rights. The messages said things such as “you gonna die, death is coming to you real soon” and “LOOK BEHIND YOU IT IS DEATH.”

Richards, seated in a wheelchair at the hearing, has significant mental health problems including agoraphobia—fear of leaving one’s house—obsessive compulsive disorder and anxiety disorder, court documents show. But Cohn said he did not think mental illness triggered Richards’ actions.