Ohio inmate who mailed threats to officials and the Dispatch sentenced
An Ohio inmate who sent more than a dozen threatening letters to judges, state and local government officials, The Columbus Dispatch and others, has been sentenced to nine additional years in prison.
Sean Heisa, 39, while incarcerated, sent threatening letters between 2017 and 2018 to various government officials with powder that he claimed was anthrax or fentanyl. In other letters, he threatened to use explosives or injure recipients.
Heisa, formerly of Lancaster, is currently serving a combined 37-year-sentence for a series of armed robberies around the state, plus additional time for previously sending similar threats.
In one letter to a Fairfield County Common Pleas Court judge who presided over several hearings involving Heisa’s robbery charges, Heisa wrote: “This is enough Fentanyl to kill you and multiple coworker(s). You deserve a more painful death but this will do.”
The following are among those authorities say Heisa threatened: officials with the Franklin County Common Pleas Court, Fairfield County Common Pleas Court, Coshocton Municipal Court; a magistrate judge in Whitehall Mayor’s Court; then-Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine; the Painesville city manager; the former Ohio prisons director; The Columbus Dispatch; the Circleville Herald; and The Ohio State University.
Heisa was charged in December 2018 and pleaded guilty in October 2019 to making false information or hoaxes and mailing threatening communications. Chief U.S. District Court Judge Algenon L. Marbley of the Southern District of Ohio handed down his sentence last Friday.
According to a press release from the U.S. Attorney’s office in Columbus, Heisa had access to what he believed was fentanyl in prison and knew that if he sent enough fentanyl, 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.
Heisa has sent threatening letters from jail before and been punished for it.
In 2015, a Franklin County judge gave Heisa three more years in prison for sending threatening letters containing a powder he claimed was anthrax to two county judges. Both incidents led to the evacuation of the Franklin County Common Pleas Courthouse and a response by hazardous-materials crews.
Jordan Laird is the criminal justice and courts reporter at The Dispatch. You can reach her at [email protected]. You can follow her on Twitter at @LairdWrites.
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