A River Forest man was sentenced to 12 1/2 years in prison Tuesday for sending threatening letters to numerous public officials and others.
During a sometimes-raucous court hearing, Ronald Haddad Jr., 39, attacked the jury’s verdict and argued with U.S. District Judge Virginia Kendall about her sentence.
“Do you even care about the truth?” Haddad, becoming increasingly combative, told the judge at one point. “I deny all this crap. I’m fighting for my life here.”
“You do not have the authority or the ability to challenge my role here,” Kendall said, announcing a break in the hearing. “I am not going to continue you to allow this behavior.”
A jury convicted Haddad last April of mailing 28 packages and letters, some of which contained white powder or mysterious substances designed to terrify the targets into thinking they had been poisoned with anthrax. Others contained shotgun shells intended to look like improvised bombs.
Prosecutors said Haddad obsessed over taxes and oil prices and waged a “campaign of terror.” He has a history of mental illness, according to prosecutors, the judge and Haddad himself.
The targets ranged from then-Mayor Richard Daley and then-Gov. Rod Blagojevich to Chicago aldermen and oil executives in Texas and California.
Prosecutors have said that most of the packages were opened by mailroom clerks or office assistants. But at least one target, then-Ald. Bernard Stone, 50th, opened a letter and had white powder spill on his hands.
“It scared the hell out of me,” Stone said at the time Haddad was first charged in 2009.
Erica Lopez, then a 21-year-old receptionist for Daley, quit her job after opening a cardboard envelope filled with powder. She said she was terrified she wouldn’t get to go home to her newborn ever again.
Prosecutors also referred to testimony at trial by Chris Coleman, manager of a local constituent service office for state Sen. John Cullerton in 2008. His wife was seven months pregnant at the time and he feared he wouldn’t live to meet his child.
“That was an absolutely panicky fear that was deliberately instilled in individuals by you, making this a very serious case,” Kendall said as Haddad continued to twitch and interrupt her.
Haddad, who has fired all five of his attorneys, represented himself at Tuesday’s hearing and continued to maintain his innocence. He shuffled a thick stack of printed newspaper articles and court cases, protesting that no physical evidence tied him to the mailings.
As Kendall delivered the sentence, she said Haddad was a man who was “repeatedly disrespectful” and “spews vitriol.”
“These are the characteristics of the man who stands before me,” she said. “If someone opposes your will, you believe that it is appropriate for you to instill fear in them.”
Haddad was arrested after he sent emails to a construction contractor that contained language strikingly similar to the threatening letters, prosecutors said.
More Top Picks Hyperlexia Vs Early Reading When To Be Concerned
In a search of his home, authorities found similar rants as well as books on how not to leave fingerprints or DNA at a crime scene, prosecutors said.
At his trial, Haddad’s attorney, Andrea Gambino, told jurors the “catchphrases” he used in the emails were common.
“Words float freely in this universe, on the Internet, in books and on television,” she said.
Twitter @lizziejohnsonnn