EAST ST. LOUIS – Richard L. Russell, a 58-year-old inmate serving time in the Bureau of Prisons, was sentenced to an additional 10 years in prison in federal court on Thursday for making violent threats against federal officials and for attempting to blow up the Thomas F. Eagleton U.S. Courthouse in St. Louis. Russell pleaded guilty to multiple charges, including retaliating against a federal official and mailing threatening communications.
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U.S. Attorney Rachelle Aud Crowe emphasized the seriousness of Russell's actions, stating, “Judges and probation officers serve the public by upholding the rule of law and supervising offenders in the court system. To threaten their lives for doing their jobs is abhorrent.” The ten-year sentence represents the statutory maximum for the offenses.
Court documents reveal that Russell has been incarcerated since January 2013, when he was sentenced to 112 months for similar threats against a U.S. magistrate judge. On June 1, 2022, he sent two handwritten letters containing death threats to a sitting federal judge and a retired probation officer, both of whom had previously worked on his cases. The letters were recovered by a deputy U.S. marshal at the courthouse.
Russell mailed the threatening letters from the Grady County Criminal Justice Authority, a transfer facility in Chickasaw, Oklahoma. The investigation was led by the U.S. Marshals Service, with Steve Weinhoeft from the Southern District of Illinois serving as a Special Assistant U.S. Attorney in the prosecution of the case. In light of the nature of the threats, federal judges, probation officers, and prosecutors from the Eastern District of Missouri were recused from the proceedings.
