Daniel Ray Sands, 32, was sentenced Monday, May 16, 2016, to 37 months in federal prison for obstructing justice via social media.(Photo: Knox County (Tenn.) Sheriff's Office via Knoxville (Tenn.) News Sentinel)
KNOXVILLE, Tenn. —<span style="color: Red;">*</span>This senior judge might not grasp the terminology of digital communication, but he made clear Monday that he knows
old-fashioned witness intimidation when he sees it.
No one sought to correct Senior U.S. District Judge Leon Jordan when, in an unusual case of obstruction of justice via social media, the judge referred to Facebook messages and memes as "email" since the delivery method Daniel Ray Sands, 32, chose to threaten a witness against his drug-trafficking father did not matter under the law.
The terminology didn't matter to Jordan.
"This is obstruction of justice," Jordan told Sands. "It's what it is. We need to send a message to others that if you do the crime, you do the time."
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With that, Jordan sentenced Sands to 37 months in a federal prison.
"You must not interfere with the judicial process," Jordan told Sands. "It's a serious crime. Most witnesses don't want to come to court in the first place."
Sands' case is among a handful of social media threat cases prosecuted in U.S. District for the Eastern District of Tennessee, and the first to involve a witness in a federal trial. Sands' father, Leonard Sands, was standing trial<span style="color: Red;">*</span>in November for his role in a large-scale distribution network in East Tennessee involving more than 200 pounds of a form of methamphetamine known as "ice" when the younger Sands sent a witness a Facebook message promising to "pay back the favor" for the betrayal of his father. The younger Sands also posted memes depicting violence against "snitches."
The witness was already in protective custody because he had earlier been beaten and his house ransacked after members of the drug conspiracy learned he was cooperating with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration. His attackers in those two incidents have not yet been arrested.
Defense attorney Karmen Waters argued Monday that Daniel Sands had no role in the earlier attacks on the witness. In urging a lighter sentence, she noted he made no direct threat and could not have carried it out anyway because the DEA was protecting the witness.
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"I don't want to suggest this isn't serious," said Waters. "But I would argue what he said versus (traditional witness intimidation) where you've got people threatening to break legs or threatening to kill family is different."
Assistant U.S. Attorney Jennifer Kolman countered that any threat to a witness hinders efforts to prosecute criminals, particularly in drug cases in which witnesses are already fearful of being labeled a snitch.
"If people are threatened, I don't care if it's verbal or physical, that needs to be dealt with," said Kolman.
Leonard Sands was convicted a day after his son's Facebook threats and is serving a 27-year prison term.
Last year, the
Supreme Court<span style="color: Red;">*</span>defended free speech on the Internet, even when it came to an angry, self-styled rapper whose rants made his wife, co-workers and others fear for their lives.
The court's 8-1 decision, written with several references to rap lyrics by<span style="color: Red;">*</span>Chief Justice John Roberts, came with caveats that made it just a temporary reprieve for Anthony Elonis,<span style="color: Red;">*</span>the Pennsylvania man who served 44 months in prison for his postings. And it did not apply more broadly to other free speech cases, because it was based on a specific criminal statute, not the First Amendment.
Contributing: Rich Wolf, USA TODAY.<span style="color: Red;">*</span>Follow Jamie Satterfield on Twitter:<span style="color: Red;">*</span>@jamiescoop
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