Woman Guilty of Threatening Judge

A Redondo Beach woman was convicted Wednesday of sending menacing letters to a Los Angeles Superior Court judge, including a threat to bomb his courthouse and a warning that his daughter and grandson would be “hung or dragged from a truck” by white supremacists.

Testifying in her own defense during a bench trial in U.S. District Court, Mimi Villegas Galdi, 36, said she never intended to carry out the threats against Judge William J. Beverly Jr., who is assigned to the Superior Court’s appellate division in downtown Los Angeles.

Galdi, described by her defense attorney as suffering from delusions, testified that she was frustrated by Beverly’s refusal to intervene in a 12-year-old legal dispute she had with a former employer.

U.S. District Judge Christina A. Snyder, who heard the case, dismissed three other counts lodged against Galdi after her arrest in April. The defendant has been in custody since then.

Snyder set sentencing for March 3. Galdi faces a statutory maximum of 10 years in prison but is likely to receive a much lighter sentence under federal sentencing guidelines.

A dental technician, she was fired from her job at Megdal Dental Corp. in Lawndale in 1989. A legal dispute between Galdi and fellow employees was later heard by a Torrance court commissioner, who ruled against Galdi. She then filed a complaint about the proceedings with Beverly, who at the time was supervising judge at Torrance Superior Court. In 1995, he dismissed the allegations as unfounded.

Thus began what Assistant U.S. Atty. Joey L. Blanch described as a “barrage” of rambling letters from Galdi to Beverly, demanding a new hearing on her allegations that she was wrongly discharged and a victim of sexual harassment.

Beverly testified earlier this week that he first became alarmed in 1998 when Galdi sent him a letter asking, “Do I have to go on a shooting spree to get your attention?” The judge notified the Sheriff’s Department, which maintains a squad that investigates threats against judges and the Board of Supervisors.

A sheriff’s detective talked to Galdi, and the letters stopped, but they resumed earlier this year.

In his closing argument, U.S. Deputy Public Defender Pedro Castillo described Galdi as “someone who was very troubled, someone who was crying out for help” from Beverly. He said the case would have turned out differently had Beverly sat her down in his chambers and encouraged her to seek mental treatment.