LITTLE ROCK—Michael Buck, a multi-convicted felon, will spend the next 300 months in federal prison for threatening a federal judge, a federal law enforcement officer and their families.
Jonathan D. Ross, United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Arkansas, announced the sentence, which was handed down yesterday by Chief United States District Judge Kristine G. Baker.
On February 4, 2025, Buck, 53, of Glenallen, Missouri, was indicted by a federal grand jury in a five-count Second Superseding Indictment for threatening a federal judge, threatening family of a federal judge, threatening a federal law enforcement officer, threatening family of a federal law enforcement officer, and false statements to a federal law enforcement officer.
On April 29, 2025, Buck pleaded guilty to the five counts in the Second Superseding Indictment. Chief Judge Baker also sentenced Buck to three years’ supervised release. There is no parole in the federal system.
In March 2025, a special agent with the Federal Bureau of Investigation investigated Buck, who was then an inmate in the Federal Correctional Institution in Forrest City, Arkansas, for making various threats and statements about his intent to kill numerous people upon his pending release from prison.
The recording then captures Buck admitting that he has used a contraband prison phone to locate his victims and that he has already called one of them to verify his information and that he hung up the call once he could hear their voice on the call.
Buck has a significant violent criminal history and had served nearly 17 years in prison and was due to be released soon from federal prison. As his release date neared, he continued to make threats and tell people he was going to kill the judge, the prosecutor, their families, and the victims from his previous case in 2008 in the Western District of Missouri where he was convicted of trafficking into involuntary servitude and coerced commercial sex trafficking.
“Threats to kill public officials and their families for simply doing their jobs will not be tolerated,” said U.S. Attorney Ross. “Here, once law enforcement learned that in addition to the defendant’s grotesque threats to murder and torture family members of the public officials involved in his original commercial sex trafficking conviction, that the defendant had also taken steps to locate his intended victims just as he was about to be released from prison, quick action was taken to prevent his release and to notify everyone involved to take precautionary measures.
The investigation was conducted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation with assistance from the United States Marshals, and the Bureau of Prisons. The case was prosecuted by United States Attorney Jonathan D. Ross and Assistant United States Attorney Bart Dickinson, along with other Assistant United States Attorneys, as part of the Arkansas Federal Defending Against Violent Extremism (DAVE) initiative.
Buck’s criminal history includes convictions for second-degree burglary, assault, simple assault, domestic violence, resisting arrest and creating a substantial risk of injury/death to any person, and violation of an order of protection.
Related Federal Cases
- Robert E. Bartels, Threatening a Judge and a Police Officer, Missouri 2022 · Arkansas
- Steven Michael George, Distributing and Hoarding Child Pornography, California 2023 · Arkansas
- Joshua Matthew Goodin, Judge Threat, Mississippi 2024 · Washington
- Bobby Laughton Yates, Bank Robbery, Arkansas 2011 · Missouri
- Jeremy Rusher, Aiding and Abetting Theft of Firearms, Arkansas 2016 · Arkansas
Key Facts
- State: Arkansas
- Category: Violent Crime
- Source: DOJ Press Release â†â€â€
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