A McHenry man has been ordered detained after he was accused of threatening to kill everyone at the McHenry County Courthouse and threatening to eat a judge’s face.
Jonathon T. Larson, 25, of McHenry, was charged with harassing a witness, intimidating by physical harm and communicating with a witness.
A criminal complaint filed in McHenry County Circuit Court alleges Larson harassed a witness by threatening them that he was going to go into the McHenry County Courthouse in Woodstock with a gun and kill everyone.
The complaint said Larson also threatened to kill McHenry County Judge Robert Zalud.
The woman who received the threat is a witness in a child custody dispute case and Larson was attempting to stop her from continuing with the court proceedings, the complaint said.
A grand jury indicted Larson on the charges earlier this month.
An indictment said Larson communicated the threat to the woman by text message and that he told her to stop seeking child support payments.
McHenry County Assistant State’s Attorney Brian Miller said Larson additionally threatened to burn Judge Zalud alive and eat his face, the Northwest Herald reported.
“Just give me five minutes in a room alone with him. You will be like, ‘I didn’t know we had that much blood inside.’ […] He would be unrecognizable. I would eat his [expletive] face off,” Larson allegedly said in the message, according to Miller.
Zalud is the judge presiding over the child custody dispute case, court records show.
At the time of the offense, Larson was on pre-trial release in three other criminal cases in McHenry County, which included a domestic violence case and two major traffic cases that all occurred in McHenry.
DeKalb County Judge Philip G. Montgomery was ordered by the Illinois Supreme Court to oversee the cases against Larson to avoid a conflict of interest.
The McHenry County State’s Attorney’s Office also sought to remove itself from handling the case because Zalud is the husband of McHenry County State’s Attorney Randi Freese. A special prosecutor has been appointed.
Montgomery granted a petition to detain Larson pending trial and said Larson has a violent criminal history and he poses a threat to the female witness as well as court staff.
The judge also granted petitions to revoke Larson’s pre-trial release in his other pending cases.
In 2020, Larson was arrested after he claimed he had COVID-19 and then allegedly spat and breathed on officers during a traffic stop in McHenry. He pleaded guilty in that case.
Larson remains held in the McHenry County Jail and is scheduled to appear in court again on Tuesday.