Radio Shock Jock Sentenced For making Death Threats Against 3 Federal Judges

Controversial Internet radio shock jock Harold Turner was sentenced on Tuesday (12-21-2010) to 33 months in Federal prison for threatening three federal judges on his internet blog site.

U.S. Judge Donald Walter sentenced Turner after the right-wing talk show host ranted in the Brooklyn Federal Courthouse for an hour about his innocence, and over-zealous prosecutors, and how it took three criminal trials to convict him.

"The three trials were more like a three-ring circus and you were a ringmaster," Turner told Walter.

Federal Prosecutors had asked the Judge Walter to slam Turner with six years in prison for writing on his blog that three appellate judges in Chicago "deserved to die" for overturning a local ban on handguns. Turner posted their photos on the Web, a photo of the courthouse and a map showing its location.

Turner also posted the judges’ full names and addresses on his Web site, and read their names during a March 5, 2005, appearance on the Fox News program “Geraldo.

Turner's first two trials ended in hung juries. The case was transferred to the Eastern District of New York because Judges Frank Easterbrok, Richard Posner and William Bauer presided in the courthouse where Turner would have been tried in Chicago.

Turner, 48, a former informant for the FBI, claimed his government handlers at the time had urged him to make provocative statements and advocate for violent resistence to smoke out domestic terrorists.

Once he's released from prison, Turner is barred from participating in any Internet or satellite radio programming for three years.