A Calaveras County man, identified as Cedar Sky Montgomery, has entered a guilty plea on charges involving the interstate communication of threats of violence. The announcement comes from the Acting U.S. Attorney Michele Beckwith, as Montgomery admitted to perpetrating a series of threats using his cell phone and internet.
Montgomery has acknowledged, through court documents, to have repeatedly used his mobile phone to not only threaten a victim to gruesomely kill their family but also to persistently send hundreds of unwanted texts and multimedia messages to another. In one harrowing instance, he promised a victim that they would "watch members of your family hanging from trees while your famil[y’]s Houses Burn to ground … .," according to the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of California.
The investigation, which led to the plea, was a coordinated effort encompassing the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Ripon Resident Agency of the Sacramento Field Office, the Los Angeles Field Office, and the Washington Field Office, along with assistance from the United States Secret Service. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Adrian T. Kinsella and Christina McCall were assigned to prosecute the case, as conveyed in the aforementioned statement.
When faced with the gravity of his actions, Montgomery also pled guilty to sending text and voicemail messages to different victims, including threats "to kill as many members of your family as I can find!" and to "cut your fingers and hands 'off your physical body,'" – chilling affirmations that painted clear his intentions to deeply terrorize. His sentencing, however, is slated for June 9 before U.S. District Judge Dale A. Drozd. Montgomery could potentially be facing up to five years in prison and fines that may reach $250,000 per count of conviction, although both sides in the case have agreed to propose a total sentence of 30 months in prison. The final decision will ultimately be made by the court, taking into account statutory factors and Federal Sentencing Guidelines, as U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of California.
