Federal judge wants more prison time for an Oregon man convicted of sending threatening letters to another judge

A man who sent threatening letters to kill, stalk and terrorize a federal judge in Oregon and harm three Portland police officers was sentenced Monday to just over a year in prison.

Senior U.S. District Judge Raner C. Collins, who usually presides over the Arizona district, flew to Portland to hear Steven Dawayne Willis’ case to avoid a conflict of interest.

Collins rejected what the prosecutor and defense attorney had jointly recommended: a term of jail time, essentially the 68 days Willis spent in jail in the case.

“I have to be honest, that’s not enough,” Collins told Willis. “I need a little more. … I want people to see what happened to you.”

Collins sentenced Willis to 13 months and one day in prison, followed by three years of supervision. When released from prison, Willis will have to spend up to six months in a residential reentry center. Collins also ordered that Willis be placed under GPS monitoring and house arrest during his first 12 months out of custody.

“I want you to think for a moment,” Collins said. “You have to see this as a kind of new life. You get the chance to get your life back on track.”

Willis, now 37, sent letters from prison threatening to retaliate against U.S. District Judge Marco A. Hernandez because the judge on March 8, 2022 dismissed one of more than 60 civil complaints Willis had filed on his own against the Portland Police, the Beaverton Police Department, Multnomah and the Washington County Sheriff’s Office, the FBI and the CIA.

Willis had sent the letters from jail while in state custody on charges of arson and criminal mischief, accused of setting fire to an occupied building in North Portland in June 2021.

Willis had alleged that officers unfairly approached him on North Skidmore Street before his arrest and asked for his identification.

About two weeks after Hernandez dismissed Willis’ civil complaint, Willis sent a handwritten letter to Hernandez’s judicial chamber, filled with expletives and promising to find the judge’s home address and use “google lens” to identify him and his family and kill him, according to the plea agreement and a sentencing memo. He also threatened to stalk the judge outside of work and beat him up, and dared him to call the FBI, court records show.

Willis wrote two more threatening letters to Hernandez while behind bars, but Multnomah County sheriff’s deputies intercepted them before they were released from jail. In an August 2022 letter, he called the judge “a dead man walking,” and the following month he wrote that he would fatally stab Hernandez with a sharp knife “for dismissing my lawsuits,” records say.

An FBI agent and deputy U.S. marshal went to speak with Willis at the Multnomah County Detention Center and Willis told them he simply wanted to “express his grievances,” according to the memo from Special Assistant U.S. Attorney Marci L. Ellsworth.

Willis then filed new civil lawsuits against the FBI agent and deputy marshal accusing them of assault and sent handwritten letters to two Portland police officers related to his arson case, threatening to kill them and a state judge, according to court records .

In an October 2022 letter to one of the police officers, Willis threatened to fatally stab the officer in the chest and pay someone to rape and molest his wife and children, according to court records.

The officer, a 26-year law enforcement veteran who had never received such a detailed threat involving him and his family, found it terrifying, Ellsworth said.

Willis was convicted in March 2023 of arson and criminal mischief. Police say on June 20, 2021, he set fire to a dumpster that grew and caused damage to an occupied business in the 4800 block of North Interstate Avenue in Portland. He was sentenced to three years and eleven months in prison in the arson case. , court records show.

After earning credit for time served, he completed the state prison sentence on August 14 of this year. The next day, he was indicted on the federal indictment, which charges him with two counts each of retaliating against a federal official by making threats and sending threatening messages. On Monday, he pleaded guilty to retaliating against a federal official by threatening him prior to his sentencing.

In a handwritten letter, Willis apologized for sending Hernandez and police “some unsavory letters.”

In court he told Collins: “I know they were just doing their job and I had no right to make them fear for their safety or their lives.”

Willis said he was “extremely frustrated” by his circumstances at the time, but knew what he was doing was wrong.

He said he did not blame his mental illness for his actions, but both the prosecutor and Willis’ attorney argued that Willis’ untreated mental illness played a significant role in the crimes.

Although Willis has been in and out of Multnomah County Jail and has a lengthy criminal history, he was not diagnosed with a mental illness until he arrived at Snake River Correctional Institution in Oregon in 2023 to serve his sentence for arson, said his lawyer.

Federal public defender Dennis Carroll said Willis was diagnosed with schizophrenia and psychotic disorders while in state prison, began taking prescription medications and received counseling.

Willis’ record during Snake River was “spotless,” Carroll told the court. Willis had a job behind bars at a call center doing telemarketing, he said.

The prosecutor said she supported the recommended prison sentence because she noted that Willis on medication is very different from the man who threatened the federal judge and police. Still, she acknowledged the seriousness of the crime.

“It is wrong to threaten anyone, but it is even worse to threaten people who are just trying to do their job of protecting the community and enforcing the law,” Ellsworth said.

Willis was ordered to have no contact with Hernandez or the police officers he threatened to harm. Collins warned Willis that if he violates the conditions upon his release, he will likely receive a harsher prison sentence, given his lengthy criminal history.

Willis has 10 prior misdemeanor convictions, 15 probation violations, one prior misdemeanor conviction and 21 failures to appear in court, according to court records.

“Your life so far has been a dumpster fire,” Collins said. “You can change. I think you are on the right track,” the judge told Willis. “My fervent hope is that we will never meet again.”

— Maxine Bernstein practices in federal court and criminal law. Reach her at 503-221-8212, [email protected], follow her at @maxoregonianor on LinkedIn.

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