BANGOR, Maine — A man serving a three-year sentence in state prison for drug trafficking pleaded not guilty Monday in U.S. District Court to a charge that he threatened to kill President Barack Obama.
Leroy Eugene Dunn, 30, of Hampden was indicted Jan. 12 by a federal grand jury for making threats against the president.
He has agreed to undergo a psychological evaluation, defense attorney Stephen Smith of Bangor told U.S. Magistrate Judge Margaret Kravchuk at Monday’s hearing.
In April, Dunn allegedly wrote: “I hate you and will do anything I can to get rid of you. … You will die at my hands. … I will kill you Barack Obama.”
Dunn wrote the letter while being housed at the Piscataquis County Jail in Dover-Foxcroft while the drug trafficking case in Penobscot County was pending, according to Assistant U.S. Attorney James Moore, who is prosecuting the case.
Last fall, Dunn pleaded guilty in state court to threatening Gov. Paul LePage. He was sentenced to 60 days in jail to be served concurrently with a three-year sentence for drug trafficking.
Dunn’s mother, Philomena Gordon of Bingham, has said that her son is mentally disabled and also suffers from the effects of Marfan syndrome, a disorder of the body’s connective tissues that can result in disproportionately long arms and legs, among other symptoms.
Gordon said her son stands 7 feet, 6 inches tall and weighs more than 300 pounds. She told the Lewiston Sun Journal last week that Dunn should be under supervised medical and psychiatric care, not behind bars.
Dunn isn’t the first inmate to be charged with threatening a president. Charles D. Miles, 32, of Skowhegan was sentenced in January 2007 to eight years in prison for threatening to kill two presidents, a governor, a federal judge and other public officials in threatening letters penned over a four-year period.
Miles, who is due to be released from federal prison in November 2012, was committed to the former Augusta Mental Health Institute in 2000 after he was found not criminally responsible for setting the March 1999 fire that leveled the historic grandstand exhibition hall in Skowhegan. The fire caused $3 million in damage.
He is expected to be returned to Riverview Psychiatric Center, formerly AMHI, when he is released this fall.
If convicted, Dunn face up to five years in federal prison and a fine of $250,000.
This man is going to be serving time in a Federal Prison, no way around it. He will go to a Federal Medical Center like Fort Devens and be there for quite awhile.
Sorry Mom but your son is a loose cannon and needs to be held behind bars for commiting a serious crime where he has medical care and psychiatric care.
I smell a paycheck for the rest of his life!
Gottcha, a hard right free speech martyr. He could parlay this into a gig as Rush Limbaugh Jr.
Boy, if saying that you would like to kill some one can put you in jail I had better watch my mouth.. I say that all the time, if one of my loud neighbors wake me up in the middle of the night I say “I would like to kill them” but I could never do it,, it is just an angry remark.
Threating to kill “some one” won’t land you in jail, but threatening the President of the United States could. So will cracking a bomb joke in an airport. Like all good things, free speech has its limits.
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The Feds will rehabilitate him and turn him into a weapon of mass destruction……………….
7’6″??? And only 300 pounds? That dude looks like he weighs 500, easy. Holy moly.
On a more serious note: How accountable can we hold a mental ill person for their ravings? Seriously. They were lucky to secure the plea last year for his threats against LePage; mental disease/defect defense seems geared towards situations like this.
Pitiful sole, you just got to feel sorry for people that carry these mental & physical burdens.
Maybe he could talk sense into Osama Obama and his pal Joe Bin Laden and the rest of Washington, just a thought
Assuming that you are running around free, you are only a wee little bit brighter than Dunn.
he need medication and a lot of help . keep this man locked away before he hurts someone.