California man accused of threatening Texas judge has long history of email threats

A Northern California man who has been accused of making violent threats against various business and government workers is now charged with threatening a judge in Texas with a graphic email about the judge’s children, according to court records.

Gregory Edwigen Hernandez, 52, who lives in a West Sacramento motel, was indicted last week by a federal grand jury on a charge of making an interstate threat, an offense that could net him up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

The indictment provided no details about the alleged crime, but a search warrant unsealed in federal court in Sacramento on Thursday morning says Hernandez is suspected of threatening an unnamed judge in Texas last August using the same Gmail account he has used in making previous threats.

“WERE ARE YOU KIDS...LIKE THE OTHER JUDGE’S SON, WHERE HE IS NOW.....,” the email subject line read, according to court documents. “WHERE HE IS NOW........................OH THAT’S RIGHT HE NOT! THIS IS COMING YOUR WAY ...JUDGE!”

“The body of the email described numerous violent acts,” an affidavit from FBI Special Agent Alyssa Park says, “including the statement, “I WOULD LOVE TO TEAR OUT YOUR NIPPLES AND MAKE YOU EAT YOUR OWN S---!...MAY YOUR OWN CHILDREN BURN AND GET RAPED BY A LOVING MALE!!!!”

The judge received the email at 11:28 a.m. Aug. 14 and after reading the subject line “it was too close to home,” the affidavit says.

“The victim was aware that another judge’s son had been shot, and he or she also had children,” the affidavit says. “The victim discussed and shared the email with a colleague, who reached out to the FBI.”

The email came one month after a gunman posing as a delivery man went to the home of Esther Salas, a federal judge in New Jersey, and shot and killed the judge’s son and gravely wounded her husband. The gunman, a men’s rights lawyer named Roy Den Hollander, earlier had killed a rival lawyer in San Bernardino and later killed himself.

The threat Hernandez is accused of sending came from a Gmail account that begins with the name “bigboyjake” and included his name, his age, his address, Social Security number and driver’s license number, court records say.

Three days after the judge received the email, the FBI and a local law enforcement officer paid Hernandez a visit at the Golden Motel on West Capitol Avenue, where he acknowledged sending the email on an Apple computer in his second-story room, then asked an FBI agent for a piece of paper and pen and wrote a letter of apology to the judge, court records say.

Hernandez was booked into the Sacramento County Main Jail on Wednesday, and had been scheduled to be arraigned in a court hearing that afternoon but refused to wear a mask to court, court records say. He appeared for another court hearing Thursday by video from the jail and entered a not-guilty plea.

Hernandez was ordered to remain in custody pending another hearing on Friday.

This is not his first foray into the criminal justice system.

In April 2016, Rocklin police investigated threatening phone calls and emails made to an insurance company from a customer who threatened to choke a worker over a claim, court records say.

Hernandez, who used the “bigboyjake” email account to send the threats, was convicted in Placer County Superior Court of making threats and was sentenced to 12 days in jail and three years’ probation, court records say.

That conviction apparently had little effect.

In October 2018 the FBI began investigating threats made by “electronic communication” to the California Employment Development Department over a payment. The threat included “a desire to kill, bomb, and burn them alive in front of their families,” court documents say.

An FBI agent went to Hernandez’ home and interviewed him, and “Hernandez told the agent that he used threatening language with others when he was frustrated and angry, and that it was his First Amendment right to express his anger that way,” court records say.

“Hernandez was admonished by the FBI agent that making threats of violence was a violation of California state law and federal law,” court records say, and he was convicted in Alameda County Superior Court of making threats, sentenced to 16 days in jail and probation that continues until May 14, 2022.

“Despite being on probation, Hernandez continued to send threatening communications,” the FBI affidavit says.

He was investigated last April by West Sacramento police over emails from the “bigboyjake” account to a worker at the Yolo County Social Services Department “regarding the services that he wished to receive,” court records say.

“The employee reported receiving profane and threatening emails from Hernandez regarding his dissatisfaction with the level of services he was receiving,” court records say, “which included the phrase, ‘I AM GOING TO BUY A GUN AND CREAT (sic) MY OWN 4TH OF JULY.’”

This story was originally published July 22, 2021 at 10:47 AM.