Minneapolis man gets decade in prison for threatening to kill several Hennepin County employees
MINNEAPOLIS – A Minneapolis man was sentenced Wednesday to a decade in federal prison for threatening to kill several Hennepin County workers.
The U.S. Attorney's Office says Peter Robert Berry, 60, was convicted of one count of interstate transmission of a threat, and a count of illegal possession of a firearm by a felon.
Court documents state that an arrest warrant was issued for Berry in 2021 following his failure to appear for a court hearing. During a phone call with a county community corrections employee, Berry "became angry and began yelling and threatened to 'shoot up the place.'"
Soon after, Berry said in a voicemail to a county probation officer that he would start "killing everybody" if his call wasn't returned.
The next day, Berry then told a county service center worker over the phone that "he was going to 'come down and kill everybody, all the judges, clerks, and deputies.'"
Four days later, Berry left another threatening voicemail, this time to the county public defender, saying "people were going to die," and that he "knew where the public defender lived."
Court documents also stated that Berry possessed three firearms, which he's barred from doing due to previous felony convictions in Dakota, Hennepin and Ramsey counties.
Once he leaves prison, he will have three years of supervised release.
