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Man's Sanity Questioned After Judge Threats

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By ELAINE SILVESTRINI | The Tampa Tribune

Published: November 19, 2008

TAMPA - A federal judge today ordered that a man accused of writing threatening letters to judges be sent to a medical facility to be mentally evaluated.

Michael Beaver was indicted last year on charges he sent threats to federal and state judges while in state prison for threatening three judges.

His attorney, public defender Adam Allen, has filed a notice that he intends to mount an insanity defense. Assistant U.S. Attorney Robert Mosakowski asked that Beaver be evaluated to determine whether he is competent to stand trial.

U.S. Magistrate Thomas Wilson today ordered Beaver sent to a federal medical correctional center to be evaluated both for competency and sanity at the time of the offenses.

In February 2007, Beaver filed a petition asking the federal courts to review his state incarceration. But the petition was thrown out by U.S. District Judge James Moody, who wrote in an order that Beaver's motion was "merely a threatening letter."

That petition, which was not part of the indictment against Beaver, contained a rambling, handwritten statement describing the government as a "corrupted, evil system" and himself as part of a terrorist group.

"Nothing personal, but you are on our hit list," says the petition, which was sent to U.S. District Judge Elizabeth Kovachevich. "In each major city of the state of Florida will be also one judge to be slaughtered on the front of a major building. Your one of them."

He wrote that his "organization isn't Al-Quida, but it's over with them in the 3rd World and their upset at the U.S. ... I will return with military technologies and equipment, weapons of mass destruction, I will sabotage the United States of America. We will be the reason of many to come to death in seconds."

The August 2007 indictment charged Beaver with sending threats to Hillsborough County Judge Rex Barbas on Aug. 18, 2005, and U.S. District Judge Susan Bucklew on March 31, 2006. Details of those alleged threats were not available.

A former attorney for Beaver has said the defendant has psychological problems and has no record of carrying out any of the threats he's made.

Records indicate Beaver has been deemed incompetent to stand trial in the past and hospitalized. According to state prison records, he is not due to be released until 2022 for a series of threat convictions.

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