BOSTON (WWLP) – An Army veteran from Florida was sentenced on Thursday in federal court in Springfield for making threatening communications to the Department of Veterans Affairs.
According to the Department of Justice, 31-year-old Drummond Neal Smithson was sentenced to 14 months in prison and three years of supervised release after pleading guilty to one count of use of interstate communications to send a threat to injure in November.
Around July 19th of 2020, Smithson, who is an Army veteran, mailed a threatening communication from Ayer, Mass to the Department of Veterans Affairs. The communication threatened to injure members of Mom’s Demand Action, which is a grassroots organization that advocates for the end of gun violence.
The letter threatened, “If you take my pension there is going to be retaliation,” and, “You take my pension, and the second I get out of prison I will go to a Moms Demand Action meeting […] Try me.”