MACON, Ga. – Travis Leroy Ball, a 56-year-old Barnesville man with a lengthy history of making death threats, was sentenced to serve the statutory maximum of 60 months in federal prison for mailing threatening communications.
A U.S. District Court Judge C. Ashley Royal handed down the sentence on June 12. Ball is not eligible for parole and will serve three years of supervised release after his prison term.
Ball pleaded guilty to one count of mailing threatening communications on January 19. The charges stem from a series of threatening letters he sent to government officials, including a letter to U.S. District Court Judge Marc T. Treadwell, in which he claimed to be a U.S. Secret Service agent and demanded that his charges be dismissed.
Ball also sent letters to the U.S. District Court in Valdosta, Georgia, and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development in Washington, D.C., threatening to kill employees and their families, as well as burn down property. He even went so far as to write a letter to the Upson County Sheriff’s Office, purporting to be an FBI agent working on a top-secret case and demanding that his photos and personal information be removed and deleted from jail records.
The FBI compared the letters, handwriting, letterhead, postage stamps, verbiage, and the “INMATE MAIL” stamp on each letter and determined that Ball wrote the letters while in custody. The defendant’s DNA was compared against the letters sent to the U.S. Courthouse in Valdosta and the letter impersonating a U.S. Secret Service Agent sent to U.S. District Chief Judge Treadwell. The results confirmed Ball’s DNA on both letters.
U.S. Attorney Peter D. Leary said, “We will not tolerate threats of violence against public servants and other similar criminal intimidations that disturb peace and order.” Robert Gibbs, Supervisory Senior Resident Agent in Charge of FBI Atlanta’s Macon office, added, “Threats against public servants are not only illegal, but also a threat against our democratic process.”
The case was investigated by the FBI with assistance from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Federal Protective Services, the U.S. Secret Service, the U.S. Marshals Service, and the Upson County Sheriff’s Office. Deputy Criminal Chief Will Keyes prosecuted the case for the Government.
Ball has a prior history of convictions for threats, including a previous sentence for threatening the President. For more information about his prior convictions, please visit: https://www.justice.gov/usao-mdga/pr/georgia-man-sentenced-federal-prison-threats-against-president.
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Key Facts
- State: Georgia
- Agency: DOJ USAO
- Category: Violent Crime
- Source: Official Source ↗
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