Five months in prison for woman who sent death threats to dad of Sandy Hook victim

[Jose Garcia]

Source: Sun Sentinel

Affter admitting that she sent death threats to a Palm Beach County man whose 6-year-old son was murdered in the Sandy Hook school mass shooting, Lucy Richards apologized to the victims on Wednesday and acknowledged that the tragic incident occurred.

“I don’t know where my head and my heart were that day when I made the calls but they were not in the right place,” Richards said, speaking in a meek voice, before she was sentenced in federal court in Fort Lauderdale.

The judge sentenced her to five months in federal prison, followed by five months of house arrest and three years of supervised release.

Though Richards has a documented history of mental health problems, Senior U.S. District Judge James Cohn told her he did not believe they were a major factor in her decision to commit her crime.

Read more: http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/crime/fl-reg-sandy-hook-death-threat-guilty-20170606-story.html

[Shell_Seas]

1. IMO, it's not enough.

[Pacifist Patriot]

2. I share your opinion.

[progressoid]

16. Yup. n/t

[irisblue]

20. Yeppers

[riversedge]

3. I hope she gets the help she needs to amend her mental health. I certainly

can not understand anyone who makes death threats to parents whose child was killed in a domestic terror attach.

[m-lekktor]

14. Because the crazy person who made the threat doesn't believe their child was actually killed.

the Sandy Hook "Truthers". They are nuts.

[Dorian Gray]

24. I have a friends on Facebook

who I lost contact with a long long long time ago. Recently she posted that Manchester/Sandy Hook/9-11/and San Bernardino were all either false flag operations or never happened. She insisted Sandy Hook was made up by the government.

I made the mistake of biting and engaged in argument with her. How could a whole town lie about something like this? Parents lost their children. She said they were all paid actors. It was such an insane argument I couldn't effectively argue against it.

People want to believe what justifies their world view.

Anyhow, I've since unfriended her because I can't read the insanity.

She argued that Manchester was a government run operation and nobody died. It was all a drill. How do you engage with this nonsense.

[Hortensis]

30. Dorian, what do they believe is the purpose of all this

massive government plotting?

[Archae]

31. Lots of crazy theories...

"New World Order/Globalists"

"Obama/Hillary wants to take away our guns!"

"Da Jews/Illuminati/Masons/Satan want to take over da world!"

Most common one?
Money.
"Send me money or Christians/TrVe Patriots/Conservatives will be persecuted."
In other words, it's a scam.

[Hortensis]

32. I remember it starting out as a plot to disarm the nation,

but that's the last I heard. The money scam version actually sounds like a step back from the mental cliff of the other ones.

Funny how, ever since Obama was elected, so many have sighted trains filled with good Republicans headed for camps in the desert but no one can name anyone who's disappeared. Doesn't matter.

[Dorian Gray]

33. I don't know

I suspect she has a mild psychological disorder and is a drug user, so the conspiracy stuff appeals to her on some level. I kept asking WHY? And the only response I got was that I was a sheep blinded by our govt./media/big pharma/consumerism.

[Hortensis]

34. Ah, "sheep," and she's one of the wise ones who see.

Sure.

People who are already disordered have a problem, of course, but I've read that it's common for previously "normal" people to become radicalized in their thinking by associating with people, such as on forums, leaning that way, that they and the groups themselves tend to become more and more extreme in their thinking in a common self-feeding syndrome.

I've also read that extremism is growing in our nation as people sort out more and more right and left and start casting hate stares at the "demons" on the other side. We're seeing a lot of hate talk these days right here on DU.

[Dorian Gray]

35. That's what scares me

and in a handful of posts I tried to point that out. Using dehumanizing words about people with different Points of View is one way to make them the other, leading to hatred and justified bad treatment. And what she was saying was so radically different from what I consider a sane response to tragedy. She truly believed that all those families faked losing loved ones.

The conversation started around Manchester being a false flag. She used video as evidence (which turned out to be a drill that local municipalities use in case of a mass shooting or tragedy). The video plainly was that, but she said it showed the whole thing was fake.... even though it wasn't in the manchester arena in which Grande played. It was all sorts of dissonance.

I tried. Then I stopped. I didn't mind being called a sheep so much. It was obvious what she was doing. But the contempt she had for anyone not on her page is what really stuck with me.

[Hortensis]

29. Yes. I find it very interesting that the judge didn't feel

her mental illness was a big factor in this; and knowing how many people become influenced by conspiracy lies and then are drawn farther and farther from reality, that seems credible.

We literally watched it happen to some right here on DU in 2015-16, who eventually had to find homes on other forums because DU would not allow them to speak what they had come to believe was "truth." Not technically crazy, although there are technical terms and lesser diagnoses for disordered thinking syndromes.

As you say, though, perhaps the prison will provide counseling and/or discussion groups that can help her get at least one mental foot back on terra firma. Perhaps. Hope the judge's opinion doesn't mean the prison doesn't have to provide mental heathcare.

[tblue37]

4. Trump & his evil spawn promote Alex Jones, who has been instrumental

in spreading the lies about Sandy Hook.

[Permanut]

5. She could have gotten twenty years..

for actions related to the Sandy Hook conspiracies, which were championed by Alex Jones.

Incidentally, the Mango Mussolini has has praised Alex Jones’ "amazing" reputation, and has appeared on Jones's show. Conspiracies centered around the supposition that the Sandy Hook massacre was a hoax perpetrated by them gun-grabbin' libtards.

[left-of-center2012]

6. About a year ago I heard of one sick b*st*rd ...

He told the father of one boy killed in that massacre,
"I won't believe your boy is dead
until you dig him up and show him to me."

Who are these sick people?
They get pleasure from tormenting grieving parents.

[roamer65]

11. Too bad we couldn't trade one life for another.

Bring the boy back and plant that asshole 6 ft under.

[Sunlei]

7. after reading the article, the mental health treatment and court rules have helped her.

good she is banned from viewing those crazy websites, that kind of propaganda isn't good for people with fragile mental health.

[Dorian Gray]

25. I think that's very important here.

This woman obviously has mental health issues, and paranoid conspiracy theories aren't any help to her. She needs therapy and help on top of jail time.

[Aristus]

8. Well, your head and your heart and the rest of you will be in the right place

for the next five months. Enjoy!

[Judi Lynn]

9. It's a familiar pattern, by now, when people terrorize, degrade, shock, demoralize others,

then deny responsibility for their grotesque behavior by claiming extreme fragility due to cruel behavior in their own pasts toward them.

It's an ugly way to go.

She should be allowed to stay out of public life, away from her instruments of terror for a much longer time, until she can cool off, and seriously consider the vile wrongfulness of her own acts, and the fact she has harmed the lives of people who have been severely damaged already.

[Raster]

10. It's a type of stochastic terrorism...

...and the chief proponent and grand enabler of the Sandy Hook "conspiracy" is Alex fucking Jones, a certifiable waste of protoplasm and a poor use of available oxygen.

[IronLionZion]

12. She's a terrorist

unlawful use of violence and intimidation
against civilians
in the pursuit of political aims.

No, she doesn't deserve sympathy for being white or a woman. Mental health should be equal opportunity, so should terrorism charges. Hard prison time plus mental health treatment is fine, but no sympathy for her if one wouldn't give that same benefit of a doubt to a nonwhite male. Most terrorists must have mental health issues if you think about it after removing the filtered lens of racism, sexism, and bigotry.

US citizens have been executed by our government for less, by Democratic administrations.

[obamanut2012]

13. Not enough, but good

I wish James Tracy could be thrown in there with her.

[packman]

15. Good - but not enough

"Mental Health Problems" - listening to Alex Jones - recipe for what she did, probably who she voted for.

[MrScorpio]

17. Fuck her. Rot in prison.

[47of74]

18. Yeah this is nowhere near enough time.

She should be doing years in prison. Not months.

[Lokilooney]

19. One of the reasons

We have the worlds most per capita prison population isn't so much as drug laws (although it does play a big part) but sentencing in general. Pick a crime and a person would most likely serve less or significantly less in Canada or Europe than in the US.

Take this example, a Canadian man plead guilty to 2 counts of uttering death threats, assault with a weapon and failing to comply with a court order baring him from possession of weapons. Mental health seems to have played a role in the case and he got a whopping 60 days 18 mo probation.

https://www.pressreader.com/canada/lethbridge-herald/20160923/281547995369921

[alcibiades_mystery]

21. Think of the gunner trash and right wing nutjobs who convinced this sicko to do it

Absolute garbage people.

[whathehell]

23. I'm hoping you don't really mean that..

I agree that her sentence is too light -- she deserves years, not months, in prison, but wanting another mass killing and another murdered child? I hope your hatred isn't that deep.

[Dorian Gray]

26. Jeez

So you'd condemn a child to death to teach her a lesson? Good god!

This is as ugly as what she did to grieving parents.

[LonePirate]

27. I can think of other Sandy Hook truthers who deserve to be in the cell beside her.

[ProfessorGAC]

28. You Mean Like. . .

. . .every single one of them???

We agree totally.