By Adam Ferrise
cleveland.com
(TNS)
CLEVELAND, Ohio — A jury on Monday convicted a Minnesota man of threatening to kill his former supervisor and members of her family after she fired him from his job.
Jurors found Godwin Obot, 44, guilty of three counts of threatening a federal employee following a four-day trial before U.S. District Judge Philip Calabrese in Cleveland. A sentencing date has not yet been set.
Prosecutors said Obot spent months in 2024 sending threatening text messages to his former supervisor at the U.S. Department of Defense Finance and Accounting Service’s Cleveland office, years after he was fired from the agency.
The messages, sent from multiple phone numbers, threatened to kill the supervisor, her husband, her children and other relatives. Prosecutors said Obot used Voice over Internet Protocol services to disguise his real phone number. Otherwise known as VoIP, the technology allows users to make calls and send texts over the internet instead of by phone.
One text read: “Promised you the law or courthouse won’t help you … murder f – – – you, murder f – – – your kids including long and short distance relatives …”
Another warned: “We won’t hesitate to open fire the day we seeing you in downtown and that a promised too!”
Obot represented himself at trial. He argued prosecutors failed to prove he sent the messages and challenged the validity of the search warrant used to seize several cell phones and laptops from his Minnesota apartment. Calabrese repeatedly overruled his objections, noting that Obot was not following court procedures.
The judge ordered him removed from the courtroom on Thursday, the second day of trial, because of repeated “disruptive behavior,” according to court records. He was allowed to watch the trial the rest of the day from a holding cell. The judge appointed defense attorney Craig Smotzer to represent Obot the rest of the trial.
A message left for Smotzer was not immediately returned.
Obot worked at the Defense Finance and Accounting Service from March through August 2019 before he was fired after repeatedly clashing with supervisors.
After his termination, Obot challenged the firing through the Merit Systems Protection Board, claiming he had been discriminated against because he is Black. He lost that challenge, and a federal judge dismissed his final appeal in March 2024 because it was filed two days late.
According to prosecutors, the threatening messages began less than a month after that ruling.
Photo credit: sergeitokmakov/Pixabay
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