A federal grand jury has indicted a 45-year-old Dallas man accused of threatening to kill multiple federal judges in Indiana, in a case that has already seen the defendant forcibly removed from a Dallas courtroom twice. Joseph Dale Lewis was indicted August 26 following a joint investigation by the FBI and the U.S. Marshals Service, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.
The indictment follows a criminal complaint filed July 31 alleging Lewis made threats against federal officials, as reported by the Dallas Express. According to that account, three judges in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Indiana allegedly received an email threatening federal judges, with a subject line reading that Trump was murdered and text referring to hitting federal judges in Indiana and the FBI in Indiana with airstrikes. Lewis also allegedly called the court and said two federal judges were going to die that day, with the caller's phone number displaying the name Joseph Lewis.
Investigators say Lewis's mother identified an email address closely resembling the one used to send the alleged threats and allegedly confirmed the telephone number used to call the court, per the Dallas Express report. The Justice Department's release did not identify the specific judges who received the alleged communications.
Repeated Courtroom Outbursts Delayed Proceedings
Lewis's initial appearance was scheduled for August 3, but the Dallas Express reports it was postponed after alleged repeated outbursts directed at the judge, and Lewis was forcibly removed from the courtroom. Authorities attempted to conduct the proceeding again on August 5, only for Lewis to allegedly disrupt that hearing too with additional outbursts and threats, including toward the judge and U.S. Marshals Service officers — resulting in his removal from the courtroom for a second time, the outlet notes.
The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Indiana, the court whose judges were allegedly targeted, is headquartered at the Birch Bayh Federal Building and U.S. Courthouse in Indianapolis and serves 60 counties across four court divisions, according to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Indiana. Lewis's disrupted hearings instead took place at the Earle Cabell Federal Building and Courthouse at 1100 Commerce Street in downtown Dallas, home to the Northern District of Texas's Dallas Division courtrooms as well as regional federal law enforcement offices, per the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas.
Case Fits a National Pattern of Rising Threats
The U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of Texas announced the indictment, with U.S. Attorney Ryan Raybould saying his office is committed to protecting state and federal branches of government from intimidation and violence, and that threats against federal judges and elected officials will not be tolerated by his office. Raybould took office in November 2025 overseeing federal prosecutions across 100 North and West Texas counties with a population of roughly eight million, according to the Department of Justice. Assistant U.S. Attorney Eli Sterbcow of the Major Crimes Section is prosecuting the case.
FBI Dallas official R. Joseph Rothrock said the bureau treats threats against judges and elected officials seriously and asked the public to report threatening behavior to law enforcement. The case arrives amid a documented national surge: the U.S. Marshals Service recorded 425 threats involving 315 individual federal judges tied to protective investigations opened during a recent period, and 564 threats involving 396 individual judges during fiscal year 2025, up from 403 threats across 302 judges in fiscal year 2022, the agency's statistical reports show. Through Tuesday, the Marshals Service had opened or worked 601 protective investigations during fiscal year 2026, and a single judge may be the subject of multiple separate threats, since one investigation can involve more than one threatened person.
Legal Stakes and the Threshold for a True Threat
Lewis is accused of intending to impede, intimidate, interfere with, or retaliate against federal officials over their official duties, in violation of a federal statute that prohibits such threats. Under 18 U.S.C. § 115, threatening to assault, kidnap, or murder a federal judge or official carries a statutory maximum of up to 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine, along with supervised release, according to a summary from EveryCRSReport.com. Lewis faces both penalties if convicted.
Federal prosecutors are not required to prove a defendant intended to actually carry out a threat, only that the statement amounted to a serious true threat meant to intimidate or retaliate against an official, per a legal summary from Eisner Gorin LLP. That distinction has mattered in other cases; a federal judge ruled in a separate matter that displaying the number 8647 by itself did not constitute a true threat, illustrating how narrowly courts can draw the line between protected speech and criminal intimidation. The indictment against Lewis remains only an allegation, and he is presumed innocent unless proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.
A Broader Strain on Judicial Security
The U.S. Marshals Service protects more than 800 federal judicial facilities and approximately 2,700 federal judges nationwide. The ABA Journal reported in 2025 that security incidents of significant concern involving federal judges surged nearly 60% in fiscal year 2025, prompting judicial administrators to request $892 million specifically for court security in the following year's budget. The same reporting, citing a 2024 National Judicial College survey of 417 judges, found more than half reported negative mental health impacts tied to rising threats, harassment, and safety concerns.
Congress passed the Daniel Anderl Judicial Security and Privacy Act in December 2022 to limit public online availability of judges' personal information, a response to the 2020 fatal ambush of a federal judge's son at her private home, according to the State Bar of Michigan. The Lewis case is not the first of its kind to move through federal court this year — in February, a Memphis jury convicted a man over judge threats under the same statute, per Hoodline. Raybould's office has also recently announced other prosecutions in the Northern District of Texas, including a separate case involving an alleged $1.45 million Ponzi scheme in Grand Prairie.
