R.I. man pleads guilty to threatening professor, abortion center

Sep. 18--A Rhode Island man who sent violent politicized threats to a university professor and a women's medical center appeared calm before a federal judge Tuesday as he pleaded guilty to federal charges of stalking and transmitting threats.

Matthew Haviland, 29, of Kingston, R.I., sat in a beige jumpsuit and told federal Judge Leo Sorokin calmly he has met with a counselor before pleading guilty to sending the flurry of messages to three separate contacts between March and April.

An affidavit by a federal agent said Haviland sent 28 emails in a little over a three-hour span on March 10 to an unnamed university professor in Massachusetts who has spoken in favor of abortion rights and published highly critical views of President Trump.

"You will have your face ripped off and eaten by me, personally," Haviland wrote in one email. "I will enjoy raping your body after you're dead. And that will only be the start."

In another email, Haviland wrote "all Democrats must be eradicated" and "They must be slaughtered."

Haviland sent 11 more threatening emails to a university department on March 15, and on April 4-5, he left approximately 114 voicemails at a women's medical center that is advertised as an abortion clinic. In one call, the federal agent writes Haviland drew comparisons between Nazis and a doctor who worked at the clinic.

The university professor told an investigator he had a high tolerance for hate mail but was "very fearful" after the emails sent from Haviland's account, and his assistant was also worried, the federal agent wrote.

A federal prosecutor told Sorokin none of the victims in the case attended Tuesday's hearing.

Haviland, who graduated from Emerson College and briefly attended law school, told Sorokin he has not been treated for any mental health issues, although he said there may have been a diagnosis in a psychiatric evaluation.

A detention hearing decision in July to keep Haviland behind bars after his arrest in April by Magistrate Judge Jennifer Boal said it appeared, from an expert report that Haviland has a history of untreated mental health issues, apparently "exacerbated" by admitted daily cannabis use since November 2018.

The two charges of stalking and one charge of use of interstate commerce to transmit a threat to injure another person carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison, although prosecutors asked for a 21-month sentence in the plea agreement.

Sorokin scheduled Haviland's sentencing for Dec. 10 in federal court.

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