TAMPA, Fla. – An Indiana man has been sentenced to four years and 10 months in federal prison for threatening his ex-wife over several years and mailing a dead rat to her Florida home.
Court records show 57-year-old Romney Christopher Ellis was sentenced Tuesday in Tampa federal court.
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He pleaded guilty in April to making interstate threats and mailing injurious articles.
According to a criminal complaint, Ellis had engaged in a four-year-long campaign of harassment against his ex-wife. On one occasion, Ellis mailed a package to the victim’s home containing a dead rat and black rose.
Postal inspectors executed a search warrant at Ellis’s Indianapolis home in February and found a handwritten note containing the names and addresses of the victim and the victim’s family and friends.
Authorities said Ellis threatened to decapitate and set the victim on fire, and he routinely made racially and sexually charged statements in text messages, including sending sexually explicit images of himself. At times, Ellis sent text messages stating that he had traveled from Indiana to Florida to see the victim.