SPRINGFIELD — A federal judge ordered California resident Jeremy David Hanson remain behind bars while awaiting sentencing for threatening Merriam-Webster over gender fluid definitions last year.
Hanson, 34, had been living with his mother in central California on strict probationary conditions after being charged in U.S. District Court in Massachusetts with threats to injure another through interstate commerce. He faces up to five-years in prison at his sentencing scheduled for Jan. 5.
U.S. Probation officials recently arranged for Hanson’s arrest and petitioned the court to detain him after he denounced his therapist for siding with the government and making “suicide by cop” threats to probation officers.
Hanson shut down the Springfield-based wordsmithing company for a collective five days in 2021 over threatening the firm’s decision to change its definitions of “girl” and “woman” in recent editions.
Federal investigators said the Rossmoor, California, man made multiple threats to Merriam-Webster by writing in a comments section on its website and using a “contact us” form.
On Oct. 2, 2021, agents said he began commenting on the definition page for the word “female,” writing that the person who wrote the definition “should be hunted down and shot.”
The dictionary icon was not Hanson’s only target. He also harassed academics, legal advocates and major companies across the nation over similar issues. Those included the American Civil Liberties Union, Hasbro, The Walt Disney Co., DC Comics, USA Today, the president of one university and two professors at another.
Hanson took particular issue with a gender-neutral Mr. Potato Head, according to court records.
Hanson was charged in federal court earlier this year and pleaded guilty in September. More recently, Hanson ran afoul of his California probation officers by fiddling with his GPS monitoring equipment and being “belligerent” to employees in that office.
“When I spoke to Mr. Hanson in regards to being courteous and respectful to our officers and office, he said ‘suicide by cop seems like a better option than going to prison,’” probation officer Vanessa Singh recounted to Springfield U.S. District Judge Mark G. Mastroianni.
In a phone conversation, Hanson allegedly responded: “Oink, oink, pig” to one of his probation officers.
He also was poised to send a letter to the editor of a local newspaper bashing a plan for a juvenile mental health facility in his region as a program “that will turn children into pansies,” according to probation officials. His mother talked him out of sending the letter by promising a meal from Jack in the Box at his request, they said.
The probation office decided it was unwilling to monitor Hanson in person anymore, and asked that he be held behind bars.
Defense attorney Marissa Elkins, of Northampton, told the judge her client had been essentially betrayed, in his mind, by probation officers and others with whom he had built trust. Elkins said Hanson is autistic and is in need of mental health treatment.
Springfield Assistant U.S. Attorney Steven H. Breslow told the judge Hanson was combative to federal agents who arrived at his home to arrest him earlier this year, threatening to bomb them. He called upon federal agents to denounce ‘commie dictator Biden.”
“He said something to the effect of: If you were a real American you would shoot president Biden in the head,” Breslow said, adding that agents subdued Hanson and discovered the metal object he charged them with was actually a mechanical pencil.
Mastroianni ordered Hanson be held behind bars, but asked whether lawyers in the case and probation officers could explore whether there were mental health treatment programs within the criminal justice system that could serve Hanson.
“Mr. Hanson clearly needs treatment. He is falling within the zone of mental health that the criminal justice system is not oftentimes equipped to handle,” the judge said.
