Judge: 'I was scared for my safety,' safety of others after inmate's letter
LANSING — In a profanity-laced letter to an Ingham County judge, a prison inmate threatened to kill various people and himself, apparently in the event he had to serve his maximum sentence because he couldn't get into a sex-offender class he needed for parole, authorities said.
"I was scared for my safety, I was scared for the safety of his ex-wife, and I was scared for the safety of his sons," Ingham County Circuit Judge Joyce Draganchuk testified during a preliminary examination for Christopher Shenberger in 54A District Court. "I considered it a legitimate, real threat."
After reading the letter, Draganchuck said she checked the state prisoner tracking site and noticed that Shenberger's earliest possible release date was the following day, Dec. 31, 2021.
Shenberger, 43, of White Lake, is set for trial on Oct. 30 on a charge of communicating a false threat of terrorism, a maximum 20-year felony, the state Attorney General's Office said Tuesday in a news release
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In September 2016, Draganchuk sentenced him to concurrent terms of 6 years, 3 months to 15 years on two counts of third-degree criminal sexual conduct and 14 months to 2 years on one count of fourth-degree criminal sexual conduct. He remains in state custody at the Carson City Correctional Facility.
The alleged threatening letter was addressed to the judge using obscenities in place of her real name and was among a string of letters Shenberger had sent her, according to testimony in Shenberger's preliminary exam last summer.
In it, Shenberger talked of killing everyone involved in his case, including his ex-wife and his sons, suggesting he would put names on a slip of paper and kill whoever's name was drawn from a jar, according to testimony.
"A life for a life," the letter said. "You see, my crime was not bad, consensual."
It goes on to say, "I wasn't this bad when I came into prison. Now, I'm ready to kill and take my own life."
Shenberger told investigators the letter was "basically, a cry for help," and he didn't intend to follow through with those threats, the postal inspector testified. The inmate said he needed to be enrolled in a class as part of the sex-offender program in order to be paroled, the investigator said.
An attorney listed for Shenberger in court records did not immediately return a message seeking comment on Tuesday afternoon.
The case is being prosecuted by the AG's office to avoid the appearance of a conflict but was filed in the Ingham County court system. Once it progressed to Ingham County Circuit Court, where Draganchuk is seated, it was reassigned to Jackson County Circuit Judge John McBain.
Contact Ken Palmer at kpalmer@lsj.com. Follow him on Twitter @KBPalm_lsj.
This article originally appeared on Lansing State Journal: Michigan judge: 'I was scared for my safety' after reading inmate's letter
