Inmate Continues To Threaten Profs Imprisoned Five Years For Pointing Gun, He Writes Letters To Two WSU Teachers

A man who served five years in prison for pointing a gun at his sociology professor now faces a federal indictment for mailing threatening letters.

Donald W. Petersen, 48, threatened the lives of two Washington State University sociology professors whom he apparently believes blocked his path to a doctoral degree in 1973.

Deputy U.S. marshals arrested Petersen on Monday as he was released from the Washington State Penitentiary in Walla Walla after finishing his firearms sentence.

In one letter mailed from prison in March 1991, Petersen is alleged to have urged the wife of one of the professors to stop having sex with her husband.

“You will be a widow soon,” the letter says.

A federal indictment accuses Petersen of sending the letters to Washington State University sociology professor Armand Mauss.

In a second count, Petersen is alleged to have mailed similar threatening letters from prison in December 1990 to another WSU sociology professor, Viktor Gecas.

Petersen apparently believes the two professors were responsible for washing him out of the doctoral program, authorities say.

“I believe I can speak for both of us when I say we are relieved that he hasn’t been released (from prison) to continue his vendetta against us,” Mauss said Tuesday.

“We hope that the new indictment will bring as long a term of incarceration as possible,’ Mauss said.

Petersen earned a bachelor’s degree from Central Washington University in 1969 and a master’s degree in sociology at WSU in 1973.

In the spring of 1988, he enrolled in five doctoral courses, but completed only two, university officials said.

In May 1990, Petersen went to Mauss’ home in Pullman and pulled a handgun on the professor, court records show.

“I made a conscious decision to let you live, you scum!” Petersen said in a subsequent letter to Mauss, mailed from prison in December 1990.

The FBI was called in after the professors continued to receive numerous threatening letters while Petersen was serving the state prison term.

He is being held as a federal prisoner at the Spokane County Jail until a detention hearing Thursday before U.S. Magistrate Cynthia Imbrogno. Assistant U.S. Attorney Stephanie Johnson said Tuesday she will ask that Petersen be held in jail without bond because he poses a danger to the community.

, DataTimes