A 67-year-old Dallas man has been sentenced to 210 months in federal prison for mailing threatening communications to federal judges and sending hoax biological weapons to the Fort Worth federal courthouse.
Donald Ray McCray was also sentenced to three years of supervised release following his federal conviction on three counts of mailing threatening communications and one count of hoax weapons of mass destruction.
U.S. District Judge Brantley Starr imposed the sentence Wednesday after a federal jury found McCray guilty on April 15.
Threatening Letters Sent From Prison
According to court documents, McCray was incarcerated in a Texas state prison when he mailed multiple threatening letters containing white powder to clerks of court at the Fort Worth and Amarillo federal courthouses in March 2025.
The letters threatened to kill multiple state and federal government employees, including federal district court judges in the Northern District of Texas and the Eastern District of New York.
One of the letters prompted the shutdown of the Fort Worth federal courthouse and a HAZMAT response involving multiple agencies. Testing was conducted on the white powder as part of the federal investigation.
After McCray was indicted in June 2025, prosecutors said he made additional threats against government employees and federal judges during a federal court hearing.
The government also presented evidence of McCray’s 2019 Texas state court conviction for threatening a state judge under similar circumstances.
Jury Convicted McCray in April
McCray’s federal trial lasted two days, and jurors deliberated for about an hour before returning guilty verdicts on all four counts.
The charges included three counts of mailing threatening communications and one count involving the transmission of hoax biological weapons.
Federal prosecutors said the threats targeted members of the judiciary and government employees and were intended to disrupt the operation of federal courts.
“Donald McCray’s threats were aimed at the very core of our justice system,” U.S. Attorney Ryan Raybould said in a DOJ news release. “Sending white powder and violent messages to judges and court staff is a criminal attempt to bully and destabilize the institutions that our system of justice relies on.”
Multiple Agencies Investigated Case
The FBI Dallas Field Office and U.S. Marshals Service led the investigation with assistance from the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, Fort Worth Police Department, Fort Worth Fire Department, Dallas County Department of Health and Human Services and Tarrant County Department of Public Health.
The Texas Tech Biological Threat Research Laboratory and Texas Department of Criminal Justice Office of Inspector General also assisted investigators.
FBI Dallas Special Agent in Charge R. Joseph Rothrock said threats against government employees are serious crimes and thanked the agencies involved in the investigation.
Assistant U.S. Attorneys Theodore V. Parran III of the National Security Section and Chad E. Meacham of the Fraud Section prosecuted the federal case.
McCray will be transferred back to state custody following his federal sentence to face a separate attempted murder case involving a prison guard.
