HONR Network

FORT LAUDERDALE: A federal judge Wednesday morning issued a warrant for the arrest of a Brandon woman accused of threatening the father of a child who died in the Sandy Hook shooting after she did not show up in court.

Lucy Richards, 57, was expected to plead guilty Wednesday to one count of transmitting threats through interstate communication and had an agreement in place to receive house arrest and probation that her court-appointed attorney said was “very generous.” 

After Richards failed to appear in court, U.S. District Judge James Cohn issued a warrant for her arrest and ordered her held without bond when U.S. marshals take her into custody.

“It was her choice not to show up,” said Robert Berube, Richards’ attorney.

Asked why she failed to do so, Berube answered, “Who knows?”

Richards is facing four counts of sending threats with a maximum penalty of five years in prison on each count. With her decision not to appear in court Wednesday, Richards’ plea agreement is likely off the table and the unemployed former waitress could be facing a prison sentence.

Berube said he was under the impression that Richards would appear in court Wednesday before she called the public defender’s office Wednesday morning and told Berube’s assistant she would be a no-show.

Does Richards understand the consequences of not attending the sentencing hearing? “Yes, she does,” Berube said.

In December, Richards plead guilty to threatening Lenny Pozner, a one-time Palm Beach County resident who whose 6-year-old son Noah was killed along with 19 other children and six adults in 2012 in Newtown, Conn. She was freed on $25,000 bond and barred from websites that push conspiracy theories.

Richards is accused of sending voice mail and email threats to Lenny Pozner. Among those messages, according to a federal indictment, was one that read: “Death is coming to you real soon and nothing you can do about it.”

During her court appearance in January, Richards got around on a walker and told a judge she has been on disability since 2004. Her only source of income, Richards said, was government aid totaling about $500 a month.

Conspiracy theorists have long promoted the idea that the shootings were a hoax, part of a government plot to impose gun control. Some have gone out of their way to harass and troll the parents of Sandy Hook’s youngest victims online, accusing them of staging the massacre or demanding documentation of their children’s deaths.

Also read: In an age of 'alternative facts,' a massacre of schoolchildren is called a hoax

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