A convicted drug dealer was busted this week for stalking and menacing nearly a dozen judges in a single Florida county, according to reports.
Todd Watson was sentenced in 2011 to six years in prison on drug trafficking charges, and began harassing judges ever since his release in March, local station WRAL reported.
The disturbed ex-con called one Jewish judge “Hitler,” and an African-American judge “Uncle Tom,” as he vowed to be the jurists’ “biggest nightmare,” authorities said.
“I’m sick and tired of the last eight years of my life being negatively impacted by lowlife scumbags such as yourself,” Watson, 53, wrote in a letter to one judge.
The judges took the threats seriously, officials said.
“I have judges literally afraid to go out into the halls,” Broward Sherriff’s Det. Joseph Kessling said during Watson’s hearing on Tuesday. “The judges, their wives, their children… they’re living in fear pretty much on daily basis.”
Watson also stalked some of the judges in the courthouse, trying once to barge into a judge’s chambers, authorities said.
“I pretty much have never seen somebody so dangerous, reckless and relentless in my entire life,” Kessling said. “He’s made it perfectly clear that he’s a nightmare, he’s free and he is not going to stop.”
Some of the victims weren’t even on the bench during Watson’s drug trial, and others weren’t involved in the case.
“Every judge in Broward County is a potential target,” prosecutor Eric Linder said.
Watson is back in jail on $100,000 bond.