Man charged with stalking, accused of sending Wisconsin's chief justice intimidating emails

Audio By Carbonatix

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Prosecutors have charged a Wisconsin man with stalking after he allegedly sent liberal state Supreme Court Justice Jill Karofsky a series of intimidating emails.

Ryan Thornton, 37, of Racine was charged Monday with one felony count of stalking. He faces up to 3 1/2 years in prison if convicted. His attorney, listed in court records as public defender Britney Dickey, declined to comment on the case when reached at her office Tuesday.

According to a criminal complaint, Thornton sent Karofsky nine emails between the beginning of August and the beginning of October accusing her of being manipulative, telling her to “eject” herself from office and asking for her home address.

In one message he told her to call the Capitol Police Department. “What a democrat idea, tho," he wrote, according to the complaint. In another message he asked if she wanted to be part of his helicopter videos, which police took to mean that Thornton believed helicopters were watching him.

Karofsky told investigators she has received numerous threats since she became a judge in 2017, but Thornton's messages frightened her to the point that she was afraid to leave her house to get her mail and asked police to escort her to her seat during a Milwaukee Brewers game and a Wisconsin Badger game.

Thornton made profane remarks about Karofsky and said she was “going down” during an interview with investigators, according to the complaint. He told the investigators to call President Donald Trump and that Karofsky “better start running or something for the hills of the feds because it's a conspiracy.”

Thornton said he was upset with an attorney that he hired to represent him in a 2019 strangulation case and that the Office of Lawyer Regulation, a Supreme Court office that disciplines attorneys, hasn't investigated the lawyer. According to the complaint, Thornton called the office more than 70 times from Aug. 1 to Oct. 1 to complain about the attorney.