A Wisconsin man accused of stalking the state Supreme Court’s chief justice has been sentenced to probation after prosecutors dropped a felony stalking charge in a plea deal, the Associated Press reported.
Ryan Thornton, 37, of Racine, was initially charged in October in Dane County with stalking and misdemeanor counts of intimidating a victim and disorderly conduct. Prosecutors dismissed the stalking count on Monday in exchange for Thornton pleading guilty to the misdemeanors, AP reported.
According to a criminal complaint cited by AP, Thornton sent Chief Justice Jill Karofsky intimidating emails this past fall. The messages accused her of being manipulative, told her to “eject” herself from office, and asked for her home address, the complaint said.
Karofsky told investigators that the messages frightened her and made her afraid to leave her house to get her mail. AP reported that Karofsky also asked police to escort her to her seat during a Milwaukee Brewers game and a Wisconsin Badgers game.
Thornton’s attorney, Anthony Jurek, told AP in an email that he filed motions arguing that the charges violated Thornton’s constitutional right to free speech. Jurek also said Thornton’s $85,000 cash bail was excessive, and he said prosecutors offered the plea deal only if he agreed to withdraw the motions rather than litigate them in court.
Online court records reviewed by AP showed Thornton was sentenced to two years of probation. The records said Thornton must have no contact with Karofsky and was barred from Dane County—where the state Supreme Court is based in Madison—unless his probation agent approves a visit for a legitimate reason.
AP reported that Thornton told investigators he was upset with an attorney he hired to represent him in a 2019 strangulation case. The complaint said Thornton called the Office of Lawyer Regulation more than 70 times from Aug. 1 to Oct. 1 to complain about the attorney, and that he said the office had not investigated that lawyer.
Karofsky said in a statement Tuesday that she was targeted for doing her job and that “is unacceptable.” She said, “A court cannot carry out its constitutional role if the people inside the courthouse do not feel secure,” adding that “Judicial independence survives only when the law — not politics, threats or violence — guides our courts.” Karofsky also said, “The courts of Wisconsin belong to the people of Wisconsin.”
AP reported that the Wisconsin Supreme Court recorded 188 threats against state judges in 2024, compared with 232 threats in 2023 and 74 threats in 2022.
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@type: NewsArticle publisher: name: Main Street Independent datePublished: “2026-01-06” dateModified: “2026-01-06” license: “https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/” isBasedOn: