Inmate’s violent threats to judge and his wife ends in federal prison

FLORIDA – A state inmate has been sentenced to federal prison for threatening a federal judge, said the US Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Florida.

Jeziah Guagno, 24, of Boynton Beach, has been sentenced to 37 months in federal prison for mailing threatening communications to a federal judge. Senior United States District Judge Roy B. Dalton, Jr. handed down the sentence.

Guagno pleaded guilty on October 10, 2023.

According to court documents, in May 2021, a federal judge in the Middle District of Florida received a threatening letter from M.S.—an inmate at the Santa Rosa Correctional Institution. The letter included violent threats to murder the judge and his wife.

When interviewed, M.S. denied making the threats. Guagno, however, was also serving time in the same Milton prison as M.S.

Subsequent DNA and fingerprint analysis by the FBI determined that Guagno’s DNA was on the envelope, and his palmprint was on the letter.

Known handwriting samples from Guagno also matched the handwritten threats in the letter. Further investigation revealed that the federal judge who had been threatened in the letter had previously dismissed a civil case filed by Guagno.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation, the United States Marshals Service, and the Florida Department of Corrections investigated this case. Assistant United States Attorneys Tyrie K. Boyer and Belkis H. Crockett prosecuted it.