After Ramsey County District Judge George Stephenson learned that a felon wanted for violating probation had threatened to kill him, he pulled the man's mug shots, studied them closely and then showed them to members of his family.
So when the man walked into Stephenson's 13th-floor courtroom Monday in the midst of a guilty plea, the judge recognized him instantly.
"I asked him to sit down, he walked out of the courtroom and I directed one of the deputies to bring him back inside," Stephenson said Tuesday, shortly after Peter Okezie Kalu was charged with making terroristic threats.
Kalu, 30, who was carrying a black bag but was unarmed, told investigators that he did not own a gun or have plans to get one, according to the complaint. When asked why he said he was going to kill the judge, Kalu said it was because the judge wanted to kill him.
In his bag was a typewritten statement that read in part: "Some idiot by the name of George T. Stephenson has signed out a warrant for my arrest. You have hurt me with no regards to my feelings. I will hurt you back. I will kill you. … I will gun you down in front of everybody before I turn myself [in] to the mental hospital."
Kalu, whose last address is unknown, was being held Tuesday night at the county jail. He was slated to make his first court appearance Wednesday on the charges.
The chain of events leading to Tuesday's charges began in February 2011, when Kalu pleaded guilty in Ramsey County District Court to mail theft. A state trooper who stopped him for speeding in St. Paul had found in his car nearly 200 pieces of mail addressed to residents and businesses in Brooklyn Park.
Kalu received three years probation and was told he would serve 15 months if he violated the terms of his probation, which included attending a cognitive skills course. The case was handled not by Stephenson but by another judge.