Chief District Court Judge Wilma A. Lewis on Thursday sentenced Kamoui Francis to 27 months in federal prison for transmission of threat to injure, U.S. Attorney Ronald W. Sharpe announced.
Lewis also sentenced the 25-year-old to three years of supervised release, to pay a $1,000 fine and to pay a special monetary assessment of $100.
Francis pleaded guilty on Oct. 9, Sharpe said. According to the plea agreement filed with the court, in January 2014 on St. Croix, the victim was a witness in a Superior Court case involving the murder of a police officer. On Jan. 28, 2014, the victim received two threatening messages on her Facebook account, which were sent from a mobile device.
The first message said if anyone was found guilty, the victim’s parents and children would be killed, that people were watching the victim and her family every night, that they knew where her kids went to school and that they were following the victim from court every day.
The second message said the victim would go missing like the murdered police officer and that people were listening to her testimony. The victim was called a rat and was warned that if anyone received a life sentence, the victim’s family would be killed, that the victim would die slowly, just like the officer, and would be fed to the sharks.
Investigators determined that the messages were sent from a Facebook account, which they linked to Francis, who was serving a sentence at Golden Grove Adult Correctional Facility. A subsequent search of Francis’ prison cell uncovered a cellular telephone whose assigned number was associated with the Facebook account from which the messages were sent.
This case was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Virgin Islands Bureau of Corrections. It was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Rhonda Williams-Henry.
