A federal jury in St. Paul has convicted 73-year-old Wayzata resident Robert Phillip Ivers of threatening to murder a U.S. district judge and mailing threatening communications, capping a four-day trial that laid bare a decade-long pattern of retaliation against the judges and officials who crossed him. Jurors found Ivers guilty on all counts following deliberations overseen by visiting U.S. District Judge Karen E. Schreier, a South Dakota jurist sitting by designation in Minnesota.
Prosecutors showed that Ivers mailed copies of his 236-page manuscript, titled How to Kill a Federal Judge, to a Minneapolis law firm and the University of St. Thomas School of Law, according to the U.S. Department of Justice. The recipients included senior U.S. District Judge Robert W. Pratt, who presided over Ivers's 2018 criminal trial, and an attorney who had served as a witness in that earlier proceeding, as reported by Reuters. Prosecutors previously secured an indictment charging Ivers with threatening to murder a U.S. Supreme Court justice, but they dropped that charge before trial after defense counsel challenged which justice was actually being targeted, with the defense noting the government's theory had shifted between Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Neil Gorsuch, Reuters reported.
According to the Pioneer Press, the case traces back to September 2025, when Ivers was allegedly caught printing copies of the manifesto at the Wayzata Public Library. He showed manifesto pages to library staff and gave them a three-page flyer advertising the document, and staff reported the encounter to police. The flyer reportedly stated that the document was designed to teach extremists how to plan, train, hunt, stalk and kill people including judges, family members and politicians, and warned that judges are going to die. Ivers later admitted to detectives that he had shown his manifesto to library staff.
What Police Found in the Vehicle Search
A search of Ivers's vehicle turned up 20 spiral-bound copies of the 236-page book, along with several flyers advertising it, per the same account from the Pioneer Press. Investigators also recovered a list of federal judges, a copy of the Anarchist Cookbook, a box of fireworks, a box of CO2 cartridges and pellets, a white foam box containing a toy replica firearm, and a photo of the former pope with cross-hairs centered on his head. The manifesto itself reportedly contained sketches and handwritten threats to kill judges along with their children and pets, named specific federal judges, and included at least one page depicting the killing of children alongside a picture of a gun.
When confronted, Ivers offered a chilling response about the manifesto's intent, reportedly telling investigators, “It was supposed to!” Following his arrest, he claimed he was having a heart attack and was taken to Hennepin County Medical Center, from which he walked out unescorted overnight before Wayzata police re-arrested him two days later, on September 5, 2025, according to MPR News. The outlet noted that Wayzata police did not have an officer available to guard him at the hospital overnight.
A Familiar Pattern Dating Back Years
This is not the first time Ivers has been convicted of threatening a federal judge. He was previously convicted in 2018 of threatening to murder U.S. District Judge Wilhelmina Wright after she dismissed his civil suit against an insurance company, per the complaint, which described Ivers as fixated on the judge who ruled against him. According to FindLaw, the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in July 2020 that the threat was not protected by attorney-client privilege, citing Ivers's own statement to his attorneys that “You don't know the 50 different ways I planned to kill her.”
In November 2022, while living in West Fargo, North Dakota, Ivers was charged with threatening to murder his probation officer after becoming enraged during a probation revocation hearing, breaking a chair leg and throwing paperwork, according to KFGO. That hearing stemmed from probation violations tied to his 2018 conviction. Court-appointed defense attorney Brett Kelley, who has represented Ivers across multiple federal matters, argued last September that the manifesto amounted to protected speech that had already been introduced as a government exhibit during Ivers's 2018 and 2022 federal cases without being charged at the time, a point reported by The Washington Post.
A Public Figure in Suburban Hennepin County
Outside the courtroom, Ivers has repeatedly sought public office, running for Mayor of Hopkins and receiving 194 votes in November 2017 and 113 votes, or 4%, in the November 2025 municipal election, according to FOX 9. The Pioneer Press also reported that Ivers had attended multiple church services at an Episcopal church in Minnetonka, telling parishioners he planned to attend future events including a family picnic and potluck, an annual baptism service, and a blessing for children returning to school attended by state lawmakers, and that he was reported for concerning behavior there.
U.S. Attorney Daniel Rosen issued a news release Friday addressing the verdict, stating that those who seek to retaliate against witnesses or judges with threats of violence will be held fully accountable. The jury found Ivers guilty of one count of threatening to murder a U.S. district judge and two counts of mailing threatening communications, marking his second federal conviction for threatening to kill a judge.
The case lands amid a broader rise in threats against the federal judiciary nationwide. Protective investigations into threats against federal judges reached 564 total threats in fiscal year 2025 targeting 396 unique judges, up from 509 threats the year before, according to U.S. Marshals Service statistics. Ivers's case, prosecutors say, illustrates the kind of persistent, repeat offender the agency and federal courts are increasingly forced to confront.
