| Judge resentences ex-FLDS man convicted of threatening IRS | |
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By Emiley Morgan Deseret News | |
A southern Utah man who already served prison time on a 2007 conviction for mailing threatening letters to the Internal Revenue Service and other government officials was resentenced in federal court Thursday. Thomas Vaughn Barlow will become an entirely free man in February after U.S. District Judge Ted Stewart imposed a prison sentence of 18 months and one year of supervised release. Barlow had previously served 21 months in prison (satisfying the jail requirement of the new sentence) and was presently serving three years of supervised release, which will now be terminated in February. The resentencing in the case of Barlow, 49, was ordered by the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals, which agreed with Barlow's contention that the sentencing guidelines had been miscalculated in his case, said Barlow's attorney Bob Steele. Barlow was indicted in August 2007 for mailing threatening letters to the IRS, as well as sending copies of those letters to then-Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. and Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff. He also was charged with interfering with the administration of IRS laws. Federal prosecutors said some of the letters dealt with Barlow's history with the Fundamentalist LDS Church, while others threatened to kill IRS agents. Court documents say Barlow began writing the letters after he was expelled from the FLDS Church in 2003. Barlow was "seeking the recovery of his family and property" in the letters, which "became increasingly violent," according to court documents. Those correspondences culminated in the incriminating letter written in July 2008, the court documents said. "This means that if you do not answer me lawfully and take my money or property or in any way continue to harass me or fail to assure me of my being secure in my persons, houses, papers and effects, that I'm justified in acts of war to balance your terrorism," Barlow wrote in the letter. "Do you get it? I will kill any of your agents I can find. I will blow up your buildings. This is war." Barlow had previously been charged in St. George with attempted kidnapping, assault and commission of domestic violence in the presence of a child stemming from the attempted kidnapping of one of his ex-wives. During his September 2006 trial, Barlow's defense attorney said his client was kicked out of the FLDS Church in 2003, and his two wives were reassigned to his brother. Barlow claimed he was trying to "rescue" his family from the church. The case ended in a mistrial. e-mail: emorgan@desnews.com | |
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DeseretNews.com Originally published Thursday, Nov. 19, 2009 | |
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