Inmate indicted for alleged threat to judge

6/14/2014

A North Toledo man was indicted Friday for allegedly threatening the judge who sent him to prison in 2009.

Maurice Fench, 28, an inmate at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility in Lucasville, was indicted by a Lucas County grand jury on one count of retaliation for allegedly sending a threatening letter on April 14 to former Lucas County Common Pleas Judge James Jensen.

Robert Miller, chief of the special units division for the Lucas County Prosecutor’s Office, said Fench sent a letter warning Judge Jensen that people were watching him and that if the judge didn’t release him from prison he would be harmed.

Judge Jensen, who was elected to the Ohio 6th District Court of Appeals in November, 2012, sentenced Fench in 2009 to 25 years in prison after a jury trial in which he was convicted of aggravated burglary, aggravated robbery, and felonious assault each with accompanying firearm specifications.

“We take any threat made against our judges very seriously and will prosecute them to the fullest extent,” Mr. Miller said.

Retaliation is a third-degree felony punishable by up to three years in prison.