Charles Morice Gilmore, a 52-year-old Missouri resident, received concurrent statutory maximum sentences of 10 years for mailing threatening communications and six years for influencing a federal official by threat. The sentence was handed down by United States District Judge Angela M. Martinez after Gilmore pleaded guilty on October 1, 2024.
While incarcerated at the United States Penitentiary in Tucson between February 28 and March 27, 2023, Gilmore sent letters to a federal judge alleging bombs were placed in the courthouse where the judge worked. These letters included religious slurs and claimed affiliations with groups like the Hells Angels and Ku Klux Klan. He also sent a letter to a federal prosecutor with pipe bomb instructions, asserting that these instructions had been sent to others outside prison. Another intercepted letter contained instructions for making pipe bombs intended for specific locations.
Gilmore's criminal record includes violent offenses marking him as a career offender. Judge Martinez sentenced him to concurrent terms of 10 years for each count of mailing threatening communications and six years for threats against a federal judge. These sentences will run consecutively with previous convictions: a 10-year sentence from 2017 for similar charges; another 10-year sentence from 2014; a 90-month sentence from 2013; and a separate 20-year sentence from Missouri in 2018 for stabbing an inmate.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation led the investigation into this case, while prosecution was managed by the United States Attorney’s Office in Tucson, Arizona.