A Minnesota man was convicted on Friday on charges that he wrote and distributed a 236-page manuscript titled "How to Kill a Federal Judge" that threatened members of the federal judiciary, including a judge who presided over an earlier, similar case against him.
A federal jury in St. Paul, Minnesota, found Robert Phillip Ivers, 73, guilty on all three counts including that he mailed threatening communications and threatened to murder a federal judge, according to court records.
His court-appointed lawyer did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Ivers, who was previously convicted of threatening to kill a federal judge in 2019, was arrested in September 2025 as a torrent of threats targeting members of the federal judiciary mounted. The U.S. Marshals Service says it has recorded threats against 299 different judges in the current fiscal year.
Federal prosecutors brought charges against Ivers after staff at a library in Wayzata, Minnesota, reported seeing him print copies of his manuscript, which he showed them.
Prosecutors alleged that Ivers gave them a three-page flyer that described his book as a guide "designed to teach extremists on how to plan, train, hunt, stalk and kill anyone including judges, their family members, politicians and more!"
Authorities have said that a later search of Ivers' car uncovered, among other things, 20 spiral-bound copies of his manuscript. Prosecutors described the document as a "manifesto" that included the names of several people and judges.
Among them was Iowa-based U.S. District Judge Robert Pratt, who before his death in January had, due to recusals by judges in Minnesota, presided over a 2019 trial in which Ivers was convicted of threatening to kill U.S. District Judge Wilhelmina Wright.
Pratt sentenced Ivers to 18 months in prison. The indictment charged Ivers with not only threatening Pratt but also a lawyer who testified to hearing Ivers threaten to kill Wright.
A copy of the manuscript was mailed to the lawyer's law firm, the indictment said, and prosecutors said Ivers told law enforcement he also sent copies to both judges as well as all nine U.S. Supreme Court justices.
The case is U.S. v. Ivers, U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota, No. 25-cr-00347.
For the United States: Bradley Endicott and William Mattessich of the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Minnesota
For Ivers: Glenn Bruder of Mitchell, Bruder & Johnson
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