Ohio inmate Sean Heisa sentenced to 9 years for mailing threatening letters

COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) — An Ohio inmate was sentenced in federal court to nine years in prison for writing threatening letters and mailing them to government officials, judges and newspapers.  

Between July 2017 and July 2018, Sean Heisa, 39, sent at least 15 threatening letters to officials throughout Ohio, while incarcerated during a 37-year sentence for robbery charges out of Fairfield County, according to a release from the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Ohio, Kenneith L. Parker. 

Heisa mailed multiple letters he claimed contained anthrax, including one in August 2017 to the city manager of Painesville, in which Heisa described what was going to happen:  “#1 – You are going to have trouble breathing; #2- You are going to die; #3 – You are going to become a martyr for a cause and an organization far bigger than yourself.”

Heisa also sent letters he said contained fentanyl, including one to a Fairfield County Commons Pleas Court judge, who had presided over several of Heisa’s hearings on robbery charges.  “This is enough Fentanyl to kill you and multiple coworker [sic]. You deserve a more painful death but this will do,” the letter stated.

“Heisa had access to what he believed to be fentanyl in prison and knew that if he could send enough fentanyl that it could kill someone, which is why he referenced it in many of his letters. Heisa chose to ingest the substance instead of mailing it,” Parker’s release reported.

Others Heisa threatened with alleged anthrax, fentanyl or use of explosive devices include:  

• Coshocton Municipal Courthouse
• Franklin County Common Pleas Court
• Mike DeWine, then Ohio’s attorney general and now its governor
• Former director of Ohio prisons
• Columbus Dispatch
• Circleville Herald
• Ohio State University

Heisa was charged federally in December 2018 and pleaded guilty in October 2019 to making false information or hoaxes and mailing threatening communications.