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You can still be tried in Boston Municipal Court for threatening to rip a lawyer's heart out, court rules

The Massachusetts Appeals Court today reinstated a one-year jail sentence for a Brockton man who sent repeated threats to a lawyer for a bank trying to foreclose on his mother's house - threats that included sending him e-mail showing how easy it would be to create bombs out of plastic bottles and wondering how heavy the lawyer's heart would be after the guy got his hand wrapped around it.

A Boston Municipal Court judge had tossed the intimidation charge after concluding state law did not allow for intimidation charges to be tried in district court, only in superior court. But in its ruling today, the appeals court said that while legislative amendments to the intimidation law over the past 20 years have been confusing, district courts - which include BMC - can still try people charged with the crime, and so reinstated a guilty finding.

Paul Muckle was sentenced to two years in jail on the charge, but had one year suspended provided he get into no further trouble after his release. He was also convicted of stalking and threatening to commit a crime and wiretapping, with a total of two years of suspended sentences for those.

According to the ruling, Muckle's threats began after he lost a federal lawsuit in 2011 against Wells Fargo - and against presidents Obama and Bush and the governors of all 50 states - for foreclosing on his mother's house. A federal judge dismissed his suit in part because he had no standing, since his mother had signed the mortgage documents, not him. A federal appeals court then upheld the dismissal.

Muckle then began sending harassing e-mail and making threatening calls to the Boston-based lawyer who had handled the case, and started writing screeds on unspecified but large mailing lists, the court continued:

On October 12, 2011, the defendant sent an e-mail to a large mailing list saying that the First Circuit had ruled against him and that "the first bloodshed will come from Massachusetts before I let ANY ONE take me out of my home."

On April 1, 2012, the defendant sent an e-mail to a large mailing list referencing the specific lawyer and saying "you [sic] are the only man on Earth I hate beside [sic] the pope and the Rothschild [sic], and I hate you even more than I hate them . . . I cannot wait to roast you! Not even god will intervene for you when I get my hand around your fat heart . . . . Is your heart light like a feather, or is it heavy as lead!?"

Not long after, the Suffolk County District Attorney's office brought criminal charges against Muckle in Boston Municipal Court.

The appeals-court verdict was not unanimous. One justice chided the others for effectively disregarding the word of the legislature, which took out district-court jurisdiction in one section, but appeared to leave it in another.

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Comments

He has a poor quality YouTube video of him ranting

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</low hanging fruit>

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in my life; as far as I know, no one who has ever threatened me was ever prosecuted and given a jail term.

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And did you report it? You do know you have to report it for the police to do anything, right?

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Someone's been playing too much Mortal Kombat.

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