March 28, 2024
BANGOR DAILY NEWS (BANGOR, MAINE

‘Career offender’ gets jail time for threats> Carmel native adds 5 years to sentence for letters to judges

BANGOR — A Carmel native whose criminal activity did not stop when he was imprisoned more than 20 years ago was sentenced to another five years Thursday for mailing death threats to federal judges from prison and threatening to blow up the U.S. Marshal’s Office.

George Frederick Gatcomb Jr., 48, pleaded guilty in federal court last November to six counts of mailing threatening communications and one count of mailing a bomb threat in the summer of 1994.

U.S. District Judge Morton Brody called Gatcomb a “career offender” and noted the latest sentence will have to be served after Gatcomb completes several prison sentences already levied against him for violations that range from burglary to assault.

Among them is a 15-year sentence for the 1992 rape of a cellmate while Gatcomb was at the Maine Correctional Center in Windham. He has since been incarcerated in a maximum security unit at the Maine State Prison in Thomaston.

A short, thin, bearded man, Gatcomb, dressed in an overly large beige suit coat and trousers, wore handcuffs and leg shackles as he was escorted into the federal courtroom Thursday. Three security guards stayed near Gatcomb, who frequently consulted with his court-appointed attorney, David Bate, during the court procedure.

Once Gatcomb interrupted the judge to proclaim his sentence a “joke.”

His attorney quickly quieted him; however, Gatcomb went on to explain that his comment was aimed at criticizing the lack of treatment programs supposedly in place for prisoners.

“There’s nothing out there. They don’t have psychologists, there’s no medication. You can’t get a Tylenol unless you see a doctor,” Gatcomb said when the judge finally allowed him to speak again.

Attorney Bate said the letters in question were written because his client was faced with a frustrating situation in prison because of a lack of treatment programs.

“He reacted poorly,” Bate said.

The threatening letters were mailed in July 1994 to U.S. Magistrate Judge Eugene Beaulieu; U.S. District Judge D. Brock Hornby; Vincent McCusick, former chief justice of the Maine Supreme Judicial Court; and U.S. District Judge Gene Carter. Don Hawley, now a retired probation officer in Bangor, also received a letter. In each letter, Gatcomb wrote that he had ordered the execution of the individual to whom the letter was addressed, according to court documents.

Court records state a sixth letter was mailed to the U.S. Marshal’s Office, located in the Margaret Chase Smith Federal Building in Bangor. That letter warned that explosives were “all around youRe (sic) office and I’m going to make you sweat. Guess what day it is going off.”

First imprisoned in 1976 when he was convicted of assault with intent to kill, Gatcomb currently is serving a 10-year prison sentence on state charges of burglary and theft by unauthorized taking. When that sentence is completed in 1999, he will begin serving a 15-year sentence for the sexual attack on a former prison cellmate. Following that sentence he has been ordered to serve eight years on a sentence out of Knox County for assaulting a corrections official.

Before he began his extensive prison stay in 1976, Gatcomb, a Vietnam veteran, had been committed to the Bangor Mental Health Institute.

He escaped from that facility 21 times in the mid-1970s and was the frequent topic of news articles involving altercations in the community. At one point, BMHI officials requested extra guards whose sole job would be to keep track of Gatcomb, according to news reports.

On Thursday, Brody also ordered Gatcomb to take part in mental-health treatment and substance-abuse treatment “to the extent they’re available.”

The judge expressed doubt that any sentence would deter Gatcomb “from future activity of this type.”

In prison, Gatcomb is “limited to the type of criminal activity to which he can participate, but he certainly seems to find a way,” Brody said.

Also sentenced in federal court Thursday were:

Charles Edward Robinson Jr., 41, Clinton, being a felon in possession of a firearm, 15 years in prison. Sentenced under the Armed Career Criminal Act, Robinson, who has been jailed in previous burglary convictions, was immediately turned over to the Department of Corrections.

Mac Moore, 20, Otis, illegal possession of a sawed-off shotgun, 18 months in prison followed by three years supervised release. Judge Brody recommended that Moore participate in the “shock incarceration” program, also known as prison boot camp. It is a military-type of incarceration in which first-time, nonviolent offenders give up certain amenities like telephone calls and television in exchange for a disciplined lifestyle and a chance for early release if they complete the program successfully.

Eric B. Clark, 28, Waterville, possession with intent to distribute marijuana, 15 months in prison, $1,000 fine, two years supervised release.


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