‘DEAR JUDGE’ NOTE FAILS
Man jailed for threats in letter to SJC justice
A man who had a conviction tossed in the aftermath of one of the state’s drug lab scandals threatened the same high court justice who ordered the dismissal, penning a missive with references to the Boston Marathon bombings and the 9/11 attacks, according to court documents.
Rickey Elliott walked into the John Adams Courthouse in Boston on Aug. 23, 2017, with plans to handdeliver a letter to Supreme Judicial Court Justice Frank Gaziano. In the letter, he told Gaziano the judge did a “good job” in dismissing his Suffolk drug case that was tainted by the Annie Dookhan drug lab scandal.
But, according to court documents, he wanted Gaziano to do more and throw out another case pending against him in Roxbury District Court.
“I Don’t want to have to blow a womens (sic) leg off in a marathon. Or fly a plane into a building for you to understand … this is imperative, and these are direct orders,” Elliott wrote in the typed letter to Gaziano, adding later: “Do you understand Frank. I hope so.”
Court staff opened and read the letter and then called Gaziano to let him know about it.
“Gaziano was immediately concerned, specifically because of the irrational nature of the letter, the personal and use of his first name, as well as the references to the Boston Marathon bombing and September 11 terror attacks,” Sara Yoffe, an assistant attorney general, wrote in her statement of the case.
Elliott was arrested for the perceived threat, and during the booking process he allegedly threatened to hit a female trooper “and called her obscene and derogatory names,” according to court documents.
During the booking process, “Elliott made phone calls using his cell phone and was overheard by the arresting trooper asking the person on the other end who they had spoken to in Judge Gaziano’s chamber,” according to court papers.
He was eventually held without bail at Worcester Recovery Center and Hospital because prosecutors proved that he posed a risk to Gaziano.
“The defendant poses a significant danger to Justice Gaziano if he is released,” Yoffe wrote. “This is demonstrated by the threatening nature of the initial letter, the defendant’s observed fixation with Justice Gaziano, and his repeated attempts to contact the justice while at (the Worcester Recovery Center and Hospital).”
Elliott pleaded guilty last week to intimidating a court official. He was sentenced to 18 months in the house of correction with six months to serve and the balance suspended for three years. He was also placed on probation.
“The attorney general’s office takes these matters very seriously,” said Emily Snyder, a spokeswoman for Attorney General Maura Healey. “And this defendant has now been sentenced for this troubling crime.”