This week’s indictment of a federal inmate for allegedly trying to arrange the murder of the Toledo judge on his case represents one of the hundreds of threats received annually by judges across the country.

The U.S. Marshals Service, which is responsible for protecting the federal judiciary and the courtrooms where they serve, conducted 926 investigations and assessments last year involving individuals and facilities under its jurisdiction, which encompasses some 2,200 federal judges, 440 courthouse facilities, and 26,000 court-related personnel.

“It’s one of our top priorities,” said Brian Fitzgibbon, assistant chief of the U.S. Marshals Service for the Northern District of Ohio.

He said the office provides security and investigates all threats of harm against not only federal judges but their families and staffs, public defenders, and prosecutors. 

With any threat or perceived threat, Mr. Fitzgibbon said, the Marshals Service conducts an assessment to determine whether the threat is likely to be carried out and, if so, how best to protect the threatened individual.

He declined to comment on specific protection efforts for U.S. District Court Judge Jack Zouhary, who was the target of an alleged murder-for-hire plot by Yahya Farooq Mohammad, 37, of the United Arab Emirates. Mr. Mohammad was indicted Wednesday by a federal grand jury in Toledo for attempted first-degree murder of a federal officer, solicitation to commit a crime of violence, and use of interstate commerce facilities in the commission of murder for hire.

The indictment alleges Mr. Mohammad made plans to hire a hit man for $15,000 to kill Judge Zouhary and arranged for his wife to give the would-be killer a $1,000 down payment.

Judge Zouhary, a former Lucas County Common Pleas Court judge who joined the federal bench in Toledo in 2006, has been presiding over Mr. Mohammad’s pending criminal case in which he and three others are charged with providing some $29,000 to support the al-Qaeda terrorist network.

When reached in person Thursday night, Judge Zouhary said he could not comment because the case was pending. 

There were no visible signs of law enforcement present near his house.

Other judges say it is not uncommon for angry defendants to make threats against the judge, prosecutor, or police officer on their case.

“I don’t want to call it a hazard of the job, but it’s kind of an expected risk that these things are out there,” said Judge Thomas Osowik, who served in Toledo Municipal Court and Lucas County Common Pleas Court before his current post on Ohio’s 6th District Court of Appeals.

“You really can’t discern where it comes from, who could be the person who could be upset enough at the judge to actually try to do harm to the judge or the prosecutor or anyone involved in the case,” he said.

Earlier this year, a Toledo man pleaded guilty to two counts of retaliation and was sentenced to three additional years in prison for sending letters to Judge Osowik and Lucas County Prosecutor Julia Bates in which he threatened their lives.

“Anybody who’s been a trial judge — and I’ve been on the bench for 25 years — knows that people threaten you and you have to be vigilant all the time,” Judge Osowik said. “You have to keep the perspective that we’re judges, we’re a democracy, we’re from the people — we all go to the same drug stores, we all go to the same supermarkets, we all fill our cars with gas at the same gas stations, and I don’t know what you can do about it.”

Fellow appeals court Judge James Jensen also has had his share of threats, the most worrisome, he said, as an assistant U.S. attorney in Detroit. He recalled prosecuting a case involving a stolen car ring. A key witness, he said, declined assistance from the federal witness protection program and was shot to death two days after testifying at the trial.

“A couple 22s in the back of the head. That bothered me,” Judge Jensen said.

In 2014, a Toledo man was convicted of retaliation and sentenced to 18 months in prison for sending a letter to Judge Jensen in which he threatened to harm the judge and his family if he was not released from prison. Judge Jensen had sentenced the man on the original case while a Lucas County Common Pleas judge.

That threat was less concerning, he said, “because I knew the individual was incarcerated and was going to be incarcerated for a long period of time” and likely did not have the contacts or resources to carry out the threat.

“Anytime you’re threatened, you think about it for a while and lay it out in your mind: Does this person have the contacts, and do they have the financial means to hire someone to carry this out if they are incarcerated?” Judge Jensen said. “... The fact is, not many people who go to prison are happy.”

A court date has not been scheduled for Mr. Mohammad, who remains in the Lucas County jail.

Contact Jennifer Feehan at: jfeehan@theblade.com or 419-213-2134.

First Published July 8, 2016, 4:00 a.m.