A former Laguna Beach resident was sentenced today to 20 years in federal prison -- a punishment that will begin when he finishes a 14-year term in a separate fraud case -- for trying to arrange the kidnapping and murder of a judge, two prosecutors and a pair of FBI agents.
John Arthur Walthall, 61, was convicted in July of soliciting the killing of U.S. District Judge Andrew Guilford, who had sentenced him to 14 years behind bars in the fraud case, and the other would-be victims.
During the sentencing hearing, Walthall launched into a 20-minute-long, meandering, difficult-to-follow diatribe against various law enforcement officials involved in his prosecution and incarceration. The gist of his argument appeared to be that he was the focus of a conspiracy by law enforcement who railroaded him and that he acted under "duress" of threats to his life and the lives of his family.
U.S. District Judge Cormac Carney eventually cut Walthall off and imposed the 20-year sentence.
"Mr. Walthall is a manipulative, dangerous, angry, cruel and sadistic man," Carney said.
"He concocted a diabolical murder scheme to exact revenge and got out of prison to continue his life of crime," Carney added, referring to a period when Walthall fled while awaiting trial. He was arrested in 2011 in Nevada with a .45-caliber gun, three barrel extenders, a fake silencer and a book titled, "How to be Invisible."
During his rambling statement, Walthall claimed that he was housed at one point in a mental hospital with hundreds of child molesters and that he had been threatened with gang rape and placed in custody with an Aryan brotherhood shotcaller.
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"To this day I am fearful of my life," Walthall said.
The defendant also insisted, "I didn't commit any crime."
He said incriminating statements he made to an undercover agent were made "under duress, under threat of being attacked."
As he did at his sentencing hearing in the fraud case, Walthall attacked his attorney, Timothy Scott, particularly for the "diminished capacity" defense that relied on psychiatric experts who suggested Walthall was suffering from mental illness.
"Supposedly, because I attempt to assert my constitutional rights, I'm mentally ill," Walthall said.
Carney said the maximum punishment was warranted because Walthall was too dangerous to be freed.
"Mr. Walthall is a very intelligent individual," Carney said. "I don't believe he should be left alone without proper supervision."
Carney recommended the Bureau of Prisons put the defendant in a high- security facility.
As Carney gave a routine advisement on the deadline for filing an appeal, Walthall said, "Your honor, I'm going to appeal. I also object to being murdered in prison. ... And now you are sentencing me to die."
Carney cut off the inmate, who was in a wheelchair, and ordered his microphone turned off as the proceeding ended and he was wheeled away.
Walthall, while serving the 14-year federal prison sentence for a gold investment scheme, was indicted in December 2014 for soliciting the killing of Guilford and the others. Walthall's first trial in April ended with jurors deadlocked 10-2 in favor of guilt, leading to the retrial that ended with his conviction.
The case centered around comments he made to fellow Lompoc inmates Crisanto Diego Trejos Ortiz and Antonio Rodriguez, as well as an undercover FBI agent, about hiring someone to abduct the judge and the others and kill them.
Walthall eventually became suspicious of Ortiz, Assistant U.S. Attorney Fred Sheppard said in his opening statement of the trial.
"This defendant was getting pissed," Sheppard said. "According to him, in his own words, Diego Ortiz was either a snitch or a (expletive) artist and he might go the same way as the others."
Rodriguez told Walthall he knew of a "middleman" who could help get the jobs done, Sheppard said, and that man was an undercover FBI agent.
Walthall told the agent, "Above all else they need to die, but first I want them tortured," according to Sheppard.
Sheppard recounted for the jury how, while awaiting trial in the fraud case, the defendant jumped bail and fled to Nevada, where he was recaptured.
Before he jumped bail, he had a friend buy three guns for him, Sheppard said.
"When he said he wanted them dead he meant it," the prosecutor said, adding that Walthall told the undercover agent, "Everything I'm asking you to do has been in the works for three years."
"And it wasn't because he didn't know what he was saying," Sheppard said, adding the defendant has not been diagnosed with a mental illness.
