Middle Georgia man threatened to ‘blow up’ White House, kill president Biden, feds say
.jpg "Federal Courthouse in Macon.")
A Middle Georgia man who earlier this year pleaded guilty to mailing a letter to the White House, threatening to blow it up and kill President Joe Biden, was sentenced Wednesday to 33 months in federal prison.
Travis Leroy Ball of Barnesville was also ordered to pay a $7,500 fine and serve three years of what is known as “supervised release” after he leaves prison.
Ball, 56, who according to online records has lived in Warner Robins and Eatonton, in March 2021 sent what federal authorities describe as “a series of letters” to local officials, including judges in Jones County and to the U.S. District Courthouse in downtown Macon.
The letter sent to the federal courthouse in Macon was said to have contained “a white powdery substance.”
The letters were signed by Ball using a fabricated name, “Terry,” and bearing a return address in the Jones County town of Gray.
It was not clear what led investigators to suspect Ball, but the authorities said this week that he has a history of making similar threats.
When investigators showed up at Ball’s home in Barnesville last year, they discovered evidence that he had written a threatening letter to the White House, a letter in which Ball claimed to be “a psycho killer.”
A passage written in Ball’s plea agreement mentioned that Ball was staying in his home’s living room “where he slept on a cot and spent most of his time (using) a laptop computer and writing letters.”
According to a statement from prosecutors on Thursday, Ball was convicted five years ago of making “hoax threats” in north Georgia, sending threatening letters containing white powder to the State Bar of Georgia and to a newspaper. He was sentenced to two years in prison for those crimes.
In 2014, Ball was sentenced to state prison and served two years for an arson conviction in Upson County.