United States v. William George Levison

This is an appeal from a conviction by a jury on two counts of violation of 18 U.S.C. § 875 (c) (the interstate communication by telephone of a threat to injure a person) and of 18 U.S.C. § 876 (the use of United States mail to deliver a threat to injure a person).

Appellant was sentenced to a three year concurrent sentence on each count, with each sentence suspended and probation granted.

The telephonic threat was made on September 26, 1967 in Los Angeles to appellant’s former wife in Alaska, in which phone call appellant threatened to throw acid in the face of his former wife’s mother, Mrs. June Pate, unless his daughter, Tristón, wrote him. Thereafter, he called Mrs. Pate in Texas, advised her he had called his former wife (Mrs. Pate’s daughter) and told her (his former wife) that if he did not hear from his daughter “that he would come down there and throw acid in your face. I will disfigure you so that even your friends won’t know you. * * *”

The mailed threat was contained in a letter from appellant to his former wife, mailed in Los Angeles on October 6, 1967, addressed to his former wife, which stated, in part, as set forth in the margin.

Two errors are alleged: First:…