By Kristin M. Kraemer
Tri-City Herald
BENTONVILLE, Ark.— A Benton County jail inmate was convicted Wednesday of making threats to chop up a judge and leave the mess in his chambers.
Brandon L. VanWinkle, 38, made that statement to his lawyer Dec. 30 after learning that he had been ordered to wear extra restraints in court because of an earlier outburst.
Prosecutors then decided to go after him for the rarely used charge of intimidating a judge.
The judge in this case was Superior Court Judge Alex Ekstrom.
VanWinkle also was accused of threatening to harm then-defense attorney Alexandria Sheridan in that same conversation if she did not listen to his demands on an unrelated drug case.
The jury — which deliberated for less than three hours — returned an innocent verdict on the threat to Sheridan.
“I’m pleased with the verdict,” said deputy prosecutor Brendan Siefken, who had to notify both Ekstrom and Sheridan of the jury’s split verdict. “After speaking with the jurors, it was apparent that they put time and effort into coming to their decision, which I respect.”
Siefken thought Judge George Fearing and defense attorney Shane Silverthorn “did a very good job,” he said.
Fearing, a state Court of Appeals judge based in Spokane, presided over the case because of the conflict with Superior Court judges.
Silverthorn had been VanWinkle’s lawyer on this case until the defendant decided to represent himself. Then on Monday, the first day of trial, VanWinkle changed his mind and asked that Silverthorn again handle the case.
Fearing told VanWinkle that it was a wise decision to let Silverthorn represent him, because the attorney had been in his corner throughout the three-day trial.
“Thank you. If I had been guilty I would have pleaded guilty, but I wasn’t,” VanWinkle said outside the presence of the jury.
VanWinkle had been in court Dec. 17 when he attacked a convicted child abuser in the jury box because he disagreed with the man’s short sentence.
After court resumed, Ekstrom ruled that VanWinkle needed to wear shackles at his next court appearance until they could hold a security hearing.
A day before that hearing, Sheridan visited her client in jail to tell him of the security order and what to expect at the hearing.
That’s when VanWinkle told Sheridan that he was going to chop up the judge and nail deputy prosecutor Kristin McRoberts to her desk.
He then began yelling at Sheridan about her refusal to subpoena a particular witness, and said “I’m going to do the same thing to you, only worse,” Sheridan testified.
However, Silverthorn pointed out to jurors that the two corrections officers who escorted Sheridan to the secured cell never heard VanWinkle say “only worse” or a comparable threat like “or else.”
He reminded the jury that the corrections officers, Samuel Cover and Brandon Goulet, are trained to observe facts. Once they recognized VanWinkle’s statements could be perceived as serious threats, they wrote down the quotes on their latex gloves because they didn’t have paper.
VanWinkle already is serving a two-year, two-month sentence for his third-degree assault conviction in the courtroom attack.
He faces between six years and five months and 8 1/2 years in prison for the intimidation charge, which is his 10th felony conviction.
A sentencing date has not been set, but his next hearing is Aug. 31.