LUKE DANIEL WIERSMA, 35, of Dyer, Ind., is behind bars for 18 months after admitting to launching a terror campaign against women’s reproductive health clinics in Chicago and northwest Indiana. The federal sentence hits hard for a string of online threats that shook medical staff and patients across state lines.
Wiersma pleaded guilty last year to posting violent threats on at least seven separate occasions between October and November 2017. Each message was sent through the clinics’ own websites—digital doorsteps used to scare, intimidate, and incite fear. The Chicago facility provides reproductive health services; the Hammond, Ind., location offers reproductive counseling. Both were targeted with venom and precision.
U.S. District Judge Manish S. Shah handed down the sentence Tuesday in federal court in Chicago. The judge heard arguments from prosecutors who called the threats “calculated and terrifying,” designed to paralyze clinic operations and terrorize the women who seek care. The FBI and local police in Dyer, Ind., spent months tracing the messages back to Wiersma’s keyboard.
John R. Lausch, Jr., U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, and Jeffrey S. Sallet, Special Agent-in-Charge of the FBI’s Chicago office, announced the sentence. The case was investigated with critical support from the FBI’s Indianapolis Field Office and the Dyer Police Department. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Kelly M. Greening and Georgia N. Alexakis prosecuted.
In a threat sent to the Chicago clinic on Oct. 29, 2017, Wiersma wrote: “I will do anything and everything to stop the unmitigated murders of fetuses. I will do anything to stop the atrocities committed by your clinic every minute of every day at your clinic. You are all pieces of [expletive] and I will kill to stop these atrocities. I will blow you up if I have to, burn the clinic down. I will do whatever is necessary I swear to God I will. After that you are in God’s hands and He will do His thing.”
“The defendant’s transmission of numerous death threats to the Chicago clinic and the Hammond clinic is an extraordinarily serious offense that threatens public safety and terrorizes both medical communities and the women who utilize reproductive health clinics,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Kelly M. Greening argued in court. “These types of threats have a significant, lasting impact on the lives of many, including the employees and volunteers of the clinics and the patients who visit the clinics for medical care.”
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Key Facts
- State: Illinois
- Agency: DOJ USAO
- Category: Cybercrime
- Source: Official Source ↗
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