PORTLAND, Maine — A 43-year-old Illinois man who threatened to come to Knox County and kill his estranged wife’s family has been sentenced to 46 months in prison.
William McBroom-Stees’ defense attorney argued that his client suffered post-traumatic stress disorder from combat duty in Afghanistan and should be released after already having served more than a year in prison.
McBroom-Stees has been held in state, and later federal, custody since his arrest in Missouri on Nov. 23, 2013.
U.S. District Judge Nancy Torresen sentenced McBroom-Stees Tuesday in U.S. District Court on one count of interstate stalking. Beyond the nearly 4-year prison sentence, she also ordered him to be on supervised release for three years after he gets out of prison.
According to evidence filed in court, McBroom-Stees’ former wife fled to Knox County with her 2-year-old daughter to stay with relatives here. She said he had become abusive and hooked on methamphetamines.
McBroom-Stees found out where she was and phoned her, threatening to kill her family members if she did not return, according to police. She reported the threats to the Knox County Sheriff’s Office and seven calls he made to the victim while she was at the sheriff’s office were recorded.
In the calls, McBroom-Stees indicated that he did not care if he was killed while carrying out his threats. He also said he would not be going to prison but instead would end up in a “nut house.”
“If you are not here on the 23rd, I feel sorry for your family. I am going to start the worst bloodbath in America. Anybody with the [victim’s last name] is mine,” he stated, according to the police affidavit filed at that time.
Defense attorney Peter Cyr of Portland pointed out that McBroom-Stees has been incarcerated for nearly 14 months. That includes more than six months in federal custody. The attorney asked that McBroom-Stees be sentenced to seven months and 17 days and then be given credit for time served.
McBroom-Stees worked as a commercial truck driver for 15 years before joining the Illinois Army National Guard in 2008 in hopes of learning a new career and spending more time with his wife and three children, Cyr stated in his sentencing memorandum to the court.
In November 2008, seven months after joining the Guard, McBroom-Stees was deployed to Afghanistan. While there, he was involved in several fatal firefights and suffered trauma from multiple improvised explosive device explosions. He returned home in June 2009 and a month later his wife left him and filed for divorce, according to the sentencing memorandum.
Those events pushed him over the top mentally and he later got hooked on meth and alcohol, Cyr said. McBroom-Stees was using half a gram of meth daily and attempted suicide at least twice, his attorney said.
McBroom-Stees also is taking domestic violence education programs while in prison, the attorney said.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Darcie McElwee argued in her sentence memo to the court that McBroom-Stees should serve the 37 to 46 months recommended in a pre-sentence report filed by the probation officer.