Suspect ruled not competent for trial

A woman accused of threatening a federal judge was told to seek treatment.
CINCINNATI (AP) -- A woman has been accused of mailing a letter in which she threatened to hurt a federal judge and enclosed newspaper photos of another judge whose husband had been killed.
Courtney Ann McFinley, 44, of Cincinnati, is accused of mailing the letter to Judge Susan Dlott on March 3, according to an indictment returned on Wednesday in U.S. District Court. She was taken into custody the next day.
She was arrested after security personnel at the federal courthouse noticed a vague, expletive-laden threat scrawled across the bottom of an envelope addressed to Dlott. The envelope was signed "McFinley" and was written in the same handwriting as previous letters she had sent to Dlott and other officials.
Newspaper photos of U.S. District Judge Joan Lefkow and her husband were in the envelope, the complaint said. Lefkow found her husband and mother shot execution-style at their Chicago home Feb. 28.
Warnings
U.S. marshals visited McFinley several times and warned her to stop her stream of inappropriate communications, according to the complaint.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Timothy Hogan on Wednesday determined that McFinley currently was not competent to stand trial and ordered that she be hospitalized at a federal medical center. Hogan plans to re-evaluate McFinley's status in four months.
"She has a history of some difficulties, and I think everyone thought it was best at this point to get her some assistance and treatment," McFinley's attorney, Kelly Johnson, said Thursday.
He has said that his client was distraught and he did not believe she intended to hurt Dlott.
Hogan said in March that she had been diagnosed previously with paranoid schizophrenia.
Federal authorities have said that there was no known connection between Dlott and McFinley and McFinley had never been involved in a case before Dlott.
If convicted, McFinley could be sentenced to a maximum of 10 years in prison and fined up to $250,000, authorities said.
Dlott did not return calls seeking comment Thursday.