{"id":49197,"date":"2024-08-29T21:49:24","date_gmt":"2024-08-30T01:49:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/?p=49197"},"modified":"2024-08-29T21:49:31","modified_gmt":"2024-08-30T01:49:31","slug":"ex-teacher-gets-5-years-in-prison-for-threatening-u-s-district-judge-in-lgbtq-case","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/2024\/08\/29\/ex-teacher-gets-5-years-in-prison-for-threatening-u-s-district-judge-in-lgbtq-case\/","title":{"rendered":"Ex-teacher gets 5 years in prison for threatening U.S. District Judge in LGBTQ case"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The judge had rejected a challenge to the state\u2019s so-called don\u2019t say gay law restricting<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A retired teacher was sentenced on Wednesday to five years in prison for threatening in obscenity-filled voicemails to harm a federal judge in Florida who had rejected a challenge to the state\u2019s so-called \u201cdon\u2019t say gay\u201d law restricting classroom discussion of sexual orientation and gender identity.<\/p>\n\n\n

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U.S. District Judge William Jung in Tampa sentenced Stephen Thorn, 66, to the maximum sentence possible after he pleaded guilty in May to a single threat charge. The sentence was twice as long as prosecutors had sought.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thorn\u2019s lawyer did not respond to a request for comment. In a letter<\/a> filed in court, Thorn apologized, saying he \u201crashly and angrily\u201d over-reacted after reading a news story about the judge\u2019s ruling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Prosecutors in court papers said the case was an example of the rising numbers of threats against federal judges nationally, a trend they attributed to how judicial opinions are viewed in an increasingly ideological country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Serious threats against federal judges rose to 457 in fiscal year 2023, which ended on Sept. 30, from 224 in fiscal 2021, the U.S. Marshals Service says. The phenomena was documented in a Reuters investigation this year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thorn, who in one of the messages said he was a retired teacher, called the judge a \u201crotten piece of ****\u201d and accused the judge of playing to the bases of Gov. Ron DeSantis and former President Donald Trump, because the judge was appointed by Trump.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou have no ******* idea what LGBTQ kids go through,\u201d Thorn said in a message that was transcribed in court documents. \u201cI\u2019m a retired teacher. I\u2019ve taught in Florida. I\u2019ve taught in California. I have seen the sheer hell those kids are put through and you have the gall to say that\u2019s part of middle school or high school is to be picked on.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Prosecutors did not identify the judge in Thorn\u2019s case by name. However, court filings specify his voicemails related to a 2022 ruling issued by U.S. District Judge Wendy Berger in Orlando, an appointee of former Republican President Donald Trump.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Berger in that ruling dismissed a lawsuit by LGBTQ students, their families, and civil rights groups seeking to stop the Florida measure from being implemented after Republican Governor Ron DeSantis signed it into law earlier that year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Florida measure, formally called the Parental Rights in Education Act, bars classroom instruction in public schools on sexual orientation or gender identity for children in kindergarten through third grade, or from about ages 5-9.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It also prohibits such teaching that \u201cis not age appropriate or developmentally appropriate\u201d for students in other grades.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In his voicemails, Thorn, who is gay, said the judge had no idea what LGBTQ children go through and was \u201cbasically giving a green light for them to be thought of as second-class citizens and bullied.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thorn said he had looked up where the judge, her husband, and two children lived and said the judge was \u201cvery easy to track.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cLet\u2019s see how you would like it if somebody endangered your children in school or your grandchildren in school,\u201d Thorn said. \u201cYou are an embarrassment to the judicial system.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Berger did not respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Florida in March reached a settlement in related litigation over its law that grants teachers freedom to discuss sexual orientation and gender identity while also shielding the youngest students from those topics<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The judge had rejected a challenge to the state\u2019s so-called don\u2019t say gay law restricting A retired teacher was sentenced on Wednesday to five years in prison for threatening in… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":49198,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"17","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","inline_featured_image":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","default_image_id":71799,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-49197","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-regional-and-world-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49197","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=49197"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49197\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":49199,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49197\/revisions\/49199"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/49198"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49197"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49197"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49197"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}