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Luis De Leon, 30, of Middleton, pleaded guilty to three counts of making threats in interstate commerce in March, the US Attorney for Massachusetts said. A judge sentenced him on Thursday, May 18, to prison and three years of parole.
De Leon was stationed at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in New Hampshire in April 2022 when he called his ex-wife in Iowa and made several violent threats, the prosecutor said.
"You’re gonna f****** pay!" he told her, according to the investigators. "Do you understand!? There will be death! There will be war in the street! You wanna go to war!? I’ll take you to f****** war!”
A few days after this call, Lawrence police arrested De Leon on unrelated charges of carrying a hatchet, resisting arrest, disorderly conduct, threatening a crime, and a motor vehicle offense, federal authorities said.
De Leon sent two letters from jail in May and June to his former mother-in-law in Iowa, where he wrote that he was a dangerous man because he had "nothing left to lose," officials said.
"I’ll be heading over there soon […] God help you and your dysfunctional family if you try and stop me. I won’t be alone either just so you know and that’s for your safety NOT MINE!!! […] If you don’t believe me just look where I’m sending this from. I don’t really have much else to lose, and do you know what men with nothing left to lose usually do?”
He faced up to five years in prison on the charges.
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