Jury finds Saundra Marcoot guilty of threatening District Court Judge Jason Cashon.
Updated: 17 hours ago
An Erath County jury on Tuesday found Saundra Marcoot guilty of threatening District Court Judge Jason Cashon over a 2018 custody dispute involving her son.
The jury took less than four minutes to find Marcoot guilty of the third-degree felony offense of obstruction or retaliation of a public official.
She was sentenced to 10 years in prison.
EMOTIONAL DAY OF TESTIMONY
District Attorney Alan Nash continued to play recordings on Tuesday showing that Marcoot made several threatening phone calls, but not all of them were directed toward Cashon.
Leah Rodriguez, assistant to Stephenville Police Chief Dan Harris, testified that on Oct. 17, 2023 she answered a call from Marcoot demanding to speak to the police chief.
In the recording, Marcoot said, “I will call back every single five minutes until I can talk to him.”
When Marcoot was told Harris was out of town, she said she would go to his house to wait for him.
Nash then played a 9-1-1 call Marcoot made saying that she was going to her grandmother’s house.
“Get your sheriff cause I’m going to get my 9mm and I’m going to see my son,” she told the dispatcher, adding that she would “kill all three of them” once she got there.
Following the call, Marcoot was transported to a mental health facility.
Judge Cashon took the stand on Tuesday, testifying that he became alarmed when Marcoot made an ominous post on his wife’s Facebook page.
Cashon spoke to jurors about the difficulties of child custody disputes, which are often highly-charged, emotional cases, but said the “dramatic escalation” of Marcoot’s state of mind caused him to fear for his family’s safety.
In closing statements, Nash called Marcoot “irrational, enraged and desperate” and encouraged jurors not to ignore the warning signs.
“When she says she is going to harm people, we have to take her at her word,” he said.
Click here to read coverage of the first day of the trial.
Opmerkingen