Jury finds man guilty of making threats on social media

A Whidbey Island man may face more than two years in prison for making a series of threats to a woman on the social media website Facebook.

A jury in Island County Superior Court this week found Jason L. Planque, 45, guilty of two counts of felony harassment and two counts of bail jumping.

The police report on the incident reports that Planque and his mother were feuding with other members of a family over his grandmother’s estate.

One of Planque’s female relatives told police in April 2015 that she received Facebook messages from Planque that were threatening to her and her father.

Planque threatened to beat her in public, to shoot both her and her father in the face and to make her and her father disappear, among other obscene and threatening messages.

Planque was arrested a week later on a bench warrant for failure to appear for a court hearing on a charge of violating an anti-harassment order. At the time, Planque was intoxicated and standing in a neighbor’s driveway, threatening that the neighbor was going to die, the police report states.

At trial, Planque testifed that he didn’t remember committing the crimes because he was drunk. His attorney argued that he was too drunk to know what he was doing; knowledge is an element of the crime of harassment, according to Island County Deputy Prosecutor Michael Safstrom.

The jury, however, found him guilty. His sentencing is scheduled for Dec. 9.

Planque has a long criminal history that includes convictions for violation of anti-harassment orders, harassment and phone harassment, according to the police report.