FRESNO, Calif. — A former Taft inmate has been found guilty of threatening to assault a federal judge in 2016.
According to evidence presented at trial, in 2016 at a federal prison in Taft, 48-year-old Craig Martin Shults, a then inmate, made threats to assault a federal judge with the intent to retaliate against the judge for presiding over a prior criminal case involving Shults.
He made the threatening communication in retaliation for, among other reasons , being remanded to custody following a bond violation hearing and being sentenced to a substantially longer prison sentence than Shults requested following his prior conviction.
Shults is scheduled to be sentenced by U.S. District Judge Lawrence J. O'Neill on March 11, 2019. He faces a maximum statutory penalty of six years in prison and a $250,000 fine.
