Judiciary
Judge presiding over Border Patrol murder-plot case warned of threats to judges after family members were killed
Senior U.S. District Judge Joan Lefkow of the Northern District of Illinois, poses July 27, 2020, for a portrait in her Chicago home. (Photo by Charles Rex Arbogast/The Associated Press)
A judge overseeing the trial of a man accused in a murder plot against U.S. Border Patrol Cmdr. Gregory Bovino became an advocate for increased judicial security after family members were killed in 2005, according to a story by the Chicago Sun-Times.
Senior U.S. District Judge Joan Lefkow of the Northern District of Illinois is presiding over the trial of Juan Espinoza Martinez, who is accused of soliciting the murder of Bovino, according to a story by CBS News. The trial begins this week.
Investigators allege that Martinez sent Snapchat messages offering a bounty of $2,000 for information and $10,000 more “if you take him down,” along with a photo of Bovino, according to CBS News.
In 2005, Lefkow found her mother and husband shot to death in her basement, according to the Chicago Sun-Times.
The investigation led to a man Lefkow had ruled against in a civil rights lawsuit. He shot and killed himself days later, according to the Chicago Sun-Times.
Lefkow then testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee that the “fostering of disrespect for judges can only encourage those who are on the edge, or on the fringe, to exact revenge,” according to the Chicago Sun-Times, and she called on the committee to help sustain “a society based on the rule of law, instead of right being defined by might.”
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