By Julia Marnin
The Charlotte Observer
ATLANTA — A man demanded his release from federal custody while posing as a Secret Service agent in a handwritten letter to a judge in Georgia, prosecutors said.
However, an “Inmate Mail” stamp helped indicate he authored the demand — and other letters threatening to kill public officials and their families, according to a Jan. 19 news release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Georgia.
The letters written by Travis Leroy Ball, 56, of Barnesville, Georgia, all had “Inmate Mail” stamps and at least two letters had his DNA on them, prosecutors said.
Ball’s federal defender Timothy R. Saviello declined a request for comment from McClatchy News on Jan. 22 .
In the first letter, Ball pretended to be the Secret Service agent who investigated him in a separate case involving his threats to kill President Joe Biden and blow up the White House, according to his plea agreement filed Jan. 19.
He demanded U.S. District Court Judge Marc T. Treadwell to dismiss that case and to be released from Federal Bureau of Prisons custody in the letter dated Feb. 24, 2023, his plea agreement says.
Ball did not only impersonate a Secret Service agent, according to prosecutors. He’s also accused of posing as his former cellmate in subsequent letters sent to the federal courthouse in Valdosta and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
He threatened to kill federal employees and their families, and he warned he’d burn down their buildings and homes in the nearly identical letters signed with his former cellmate’s name, according to his plea agreement.
“Take me very serious! If not, then I’ll kill all of you,” Ball wrote in the letters received in March and May, his plea agreement says.
In a fourth letter sent to the Upson County Sheriff’s Office in July, Ball posed as an FBI agent, according to prosecutors.
He wrote he was working on a “top-secret case” and demanded that the sheriff’s office delete photos of Ball and his information from jail records, prosecutors said.
The FBI figured out Ball wrote each of the letters after noticing the “Inmate Mail” stamps and comparing the handwriting, the verbiage he used, the letterheads and postage stamps, according to prosecutors.
Ball pleaded guilty to one count of mailing threatening communications on Jan. 19, the attorney’s office announced.
He wrote the letters while in custody at a county jail, his plea agreement says. When his jail cell was searched, officers found pencils, white envelopes, postage stamps and a legal pad, according to the plea agreement.
In November 2022 , Ball was sentenced to two years and nine months in federal prison in connection with threatening the president and the White House , the attorney’s office announced Dec. 1, 2022 .
That sentence was to be served consecutively to any state sentences imposed against him, court records show.
The charges in the current case were filed against him in October as he served the two years and nine month federal sentence, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported.
For mailing threatening communications, Ball faces up to five years in prison and up to a $250,000 fine, prosecutors said.
“While Mr. Ball’s continued criminal conduct clearly illustrates his lack of concern and compassion for others, it also illustrates his unwillingness to be rehabilitated,” Robert Gibbs , the supervisory senior resident agent in charge of FBI Atlanta’s Macon office, said in a statement.
“Hopefully, this additional sentence will finally send the message that the FBI will not tolerate his hate fueled hoaxes and will continue to hold him accountable,” Gibbs added.
Barnesville is about 60 miles southeast of Atlanta.
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