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Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Spokane man convicted of threatening to blow up federal courthouse indicted on same charge

Scott J. Franklin was indicted on suspicion that he threated threat to bomb the Thomas S. Foley United States Courthouse, shown May 21, for the second time. (Jesse Tinsley / The Spokesman-Review)

A Spokane man who pleaded guilty in 2013 to mailing from Spokane County Jail a threat to bomb the Thomas S. Foley United States Courthouse and kill a judge was indicted Tuesday on suspicion that he sent a similar threat from the jail in mid-October.

Scott J. Franklin, 49, was sentenced to 33 1/2 months in prison in 2013 for mailing threats from the jail a week before he was set to be released. He had 16 prior felony convictions for burglary, theft and drug possession at that time.

Franklin said he mailed the threat as a dare to win a bag of coffee.

Franklin’s supervised release was revoked in April 2017, and he was sentenced to an additional 18 months in prison, putting his release in October 2018, according to court documents.

That month he was arrested and charged with felony drug possession in Spokane County Superior Court, but the case never went to trial. Franklin was released from jail in June 2019 and arrested again in September, according to jail records. His case resumed active status at the end of October, but he was sentenced to 30 days in jail on an unrelated trespassing charge.

The clerk’s office for the federal district court in Spokane alerted U.S. Marshals on Oct. 16 that it had received two handwritten letters signed by Franklin from the county jail saying that he planned to kill every FBI agent and federal judge at the courthouse with a bomb, according to court documents.

Court document say he wrote, “You can’t charge me with mailing threatening communications. Because that letter is a promise.”

Federal agents interviewed Franklin at the Spokane County Jail, and he reportedly said he intended on following through with the threats.

“I was gonna try to figure out how to make a bomb and blow up the,” building, Franklin said, according to court documents. Then he told federal agents, “Probably not now. I’m not mad no more.”

Franklin entered a not guilty plea for the charge of mailing threatening communications on Wednesday, according to court records. A federal judge ordered Franklin to be jailed pending the outcome of his case. A trial date has not been set.