A common pleas court jury found a Butler Township man guilty of charges filed by state police for threatening a district judge and another district court’s entire office in June 2023.

Matthew P. Dec, 54, was found guilty of five counts of terroristic threats and four counts of harassment — all misdemeanors — on March 20 at the conclusion of a three-day trial. A felony count of aggravated assault and four misdemeanor counts of simple assault were dismissed.

When Dec called District Judge Kevin O’Donnell’s office in Butler Township on June 6, his call was placed on the speaker so the entire office could hear the conversation due to previous volatile interactions with him, state police said in an affidavit.

Dec wanted to file a lawsuit, but wanted to do it at O’Donnell’s office instead of District Judge Lewis Stoughton’s office in Chicora, police said. He was told he had to file the suit at Stoughton’s office and Stoughton would have to recuse himself for the suit to be transferred to another court, police said.

He then began to threaten to hire people from Pittsburgh to “come up and burn Judge Stoughton’s place down” and repeated the threat numerous times during the phone call, police said.

Dec then threatened to bring people from Pittsburgh with him to “take out everyone in MDJ office 50-1-01” and told the employee he was talking to he would put a gun in her mouth because she is a communist, police said. District court 50-1-01 is O’Donnell’s office.

Dec is awaiting sentencing, which hasn’t been scheduled. Senior Judge Kenneth Valasek presided over the case.