A Nevada prisoner is accused of addressing letters to a federal judge in Las Vegas, threatening to send someone to kidnap and torture the judicial officer and “have my people kill whatever you hold dearly first,” according to a criminal complaint.

A federal grand jury indicted Hadari Stallworth this week on five charges of threatening a U.S. judge, mailing threatening communications, false information and hoaxes, court records show.

The 28-year-old is currently being housed in the Ely State Prison after convictions in Clark County crimes.

And he was serving a two-to-five year prison sentence — for robbery and kidnapping — when he allegedly sent the letters to a Las Vegas courthouse and the U.S. Supreme Court in 2022, which were addressed to the judge, who wasn’t identified in the complaint.

Stallworth is accused of sending a letter in June of that year to the U.S. District Court in Las Vegas, threatening the judge with killing their “pets, kids, grandkids, husband…,” the complaint said.

The perpetrator, the letter said, would put a “2-inch cut in your trachea,” according to the complaint.

In September 2022, Stallworth allegedly sent a second letter addressed to the Las Vegas judge, which made its way to the U.S. Supreme Court.

“You… are… dead,” the letter said. “I’m gonna get your houses set on fire with your bodies still in it,” the complaint added.

Using anti-Semitic language, Stallworth allegedly wrote that the judge’s death would be like those that occurred during the Holocaust, the complaint said.

Stallworth is accused of sending two more letters to the federal courthouse in Las Vegas, falsely stating that the correspondence contained anthrax and a blowfish toxin, the complaint said.

Nevada Department of Correction records show that Stallworth has been serving prison sentences for the past decade for crimes in Clark County, essentially his entire adult life.

Stallworth is due in federal court for an initial appearance on April 30, records show.

Contact Ricardo Torres-Cortez at rtorres@reviewjournal.com.

The Nevada Supreme Court upheld a 2021 state ban on ghost guns Thursday, overturning a lower-court decision that declared the law unconstitutional for being vague. Ghost guns are guns without serial numbers and are usually assembled by the user.

Justice Lidia S. Stiglich authored the opinion of the court. Stiglich ruled that the law’s definition of “unfinished frame or receiver” was not unconstitutionally vague. Stiglich noted that the court can consult ordinary dictionaries, specialized dictionaries and industry association publications to understand words with technical or special meanings. After consulting several dictionaries and trade definitions, Stiglich concluded that the term unfinished frame or receiver and the words in its definition are “readily ascertainable through their ordinary usage and understandings common to the heavily regulated subject of firearms.”

Additionally, Stiglich found that the statute does not pose a risk of arbitrary enforcement by the government. Stiglich found that the statute is a general intent statute, meaning that a person has a guilty state of mind to be convicted of a criminal offense if they intend to perform a specific act that led to the crime. Stiglich noted that to convict someone under this law:

[T]he State must show that the defendant willfully sold, offered to sell, transferred, possessed, purchased, transported, or received an unfinished frame or receiver and that the defendant knew that the object at issue had the objective characteristics of being intended to be turned into a firearm.

Because the law requires a general intent, Stiglich found no risk of arbitrary enforcement.

In response to the court’s decision, Nevada Attorney General Aaron Ford stated:

The ban on ‘ghost guns’ is one of the most impactful pieces of legislation that we have seen come through Carson City. [The] decision … is a win for public safety and creates sensible, practical measures to protect Nevadans from violent crime.

In 2021, the Nevada legislature passed AB 286. The law banned transactions involving incomplete gun frames and receivers and unserialized weapons, with exceptions for antique guns and collectors’ items. That year, a US District Court also upheld the law, ruling that it did not violate the Second Amendment.

This is not the only recent litigation over government regulation of ghost guns. In November 2023, the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ruled that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) lacked authority to adopt a final rule aimed at limiting ghost guns. The Biden administration appealed this decision to the US Supreme Court.