ROCKFORD — Charges may be dismissed against a Boone County man accused of threatening a U.S. senator last year if the man does not contact any members of Congress or break any laws for the next two years, according to a deal the man made Tuesday with federal prosecutors.
A grand jury in Rockford on Aug. 8 indicted Walter S. Boyd, 59, of Garden Prairie, on charges of threatening a U.S. official with the intent to impede, intimidate and interfere or retaliate against an unnamed senator and transmitting a threatening communication.
During a plea hearing Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Rockford, Boyd did not plead guilty to those charges. Instead, U.S. District Judge Frederick J. Kapala said Boyd was entering into a two-year deferred prosecution agreement. Such agreements typically call for defendants to comply with certain requirements before prosecutors will ask to dismiss charges.
“It's a very nice gesture,” Boyd said during the hearing.
Boyd is accused of threatening the unnamed U.S. senator on March 15. The incident involved Boyd threatening on the phone to "assault" the senator with a rifle, according to his indictment.
“He never threatened to shoot a senator,” Boyd’s defense attorney, James Hursh, said after the plea hearing.
A U.S. senator from another state allegedly was threatened, but neither Assistant U.S. Attorney Joseph Pedersen or Hursh would name that senator or the state in which he or she serves. The senator’s name doesn’t appear in any public court records filed in this case.
During Tuesday’s hearing, Boyd voiced concerns with agreeing to the allegations. Hursh told Kapala he asked to “modify some of the language” but prosecutors would not.
“He doesn’t agree with the facts of the agreement,” Pedersen told Kapala. “We’re ready to set it for trial today.”
After Kapala explained that by signing the agreement Boyd admitted to the allegations, Boyd relented.
“His medical conditions are weighing very heavily on him,” Hursh said of Boyd after the hearing. “He doesn’t need the stress of a trial. (Entering the agreement) is the surest way for him to have the charges dismissed.”
Boyd said he has extensive respiratory problems from emphysema and asbestosis and from having had both of his lungs collapse.
Boyd — who is on disability after serving in the Navy, working on aircraft hydraulics and as an engineer programming logic arrays for aircraft — remains free.
If Boyd complies with the terms of the deferred prosecution agreement, prosecutors likely will ask to dismiss the charges in 2020.
Kristen Zambo: 815-987-1339; kzambo@rrstar.com; @KristenZambo