Woman Sentenced to 1 Year After Pleading Guilty to Assaulting Officer During Arrest for Emailing Threats to Individual at Norfolk Courthouse, TCC Employee

NORFOLK, Va. — Jennifer Leanne Isaac, 24, was sentenced on March 6 to serve one year in custody after she pleaded guilty to emailing threats to an individual at the Norfolk Circuit Court Clerk’s Office as well as an employee of Tidewater Community College and to spitting in the face of an officer who was booking her into jail following her arrest for those threats.

On April 17, 2024, Ms. Isaac — who has a history of mental illness and criminal convictions — sent threatening messages from her personal email address (which included her first initial and last name) directly to the work email address of an individual at the Norfolk Circuit Court Clerk’s Office. Those emails included statements that Ms. Isaac was going to “come up there with a gun or knife” to harm that individual and that Ms. Isaac was going to enlist the help of others to assault that individual.

On April 20, Ms. Isaac sent threatening messages from her same email address to the general email address for the TCC Financial Aid Office. Those emails from Ms. Isaac were directed to a particular employee of that office and included a death threat against that employee. That employee recognized Ms. Isaac’s email address from previous interactions with Ms. Isaac while she was a student at the college.

In their investigation of those two incidents, Norfolk Police detectives secured a search warrant for information about Ms. Isaac’s email account and confirmed from the provider that Ms. Isaac was in fact the account creator and owner. Based on that information, police secured warrants for Ms. Isaac’s arrest on felony charges of making threats by electronic messages. When Ms. Isaac was taken into custody on those warrants in May, she appeared to be having a manic episode, she spat in the face of a booking officer, and she was charged additionally with assaulting a law enforcement officer. Ms. Isaac was initially determined to be incompetent to stand trial and spent some time undergoing mental health treatment to restore her competency while she remained in custody.

On March 6, Ms. Isaac entered an agreement to plead guilty to one count each of felony threat by electronic message, misdemeanor computer harassment, and misdemeanor assault. Ms. Isaac agreed to serve one year in custody with credit for time served and with six additional years suspended on the conditions that she be of uniform good behavior for three years, complete three years of supervised probation, have no contact with any of the victims, and comply with any mental health treatment recommended from the Norfolk Community Services Board. That sentence was consistent with Ms. Isaac’s state sentencing guidelines. Judge Robert B. Rigney accepted Ms. Isaac’s plea agreement and sentenced her per the agreement.

“Individuals in government and higher education deserve to do their work free from harassment and threats of physical harm, and our law-enforcement officers deserve to do their work free of assault,” said Commonwealth’s Attorney Ramin Fatehi. “Ms. Isaac is mentally ill, but she is sufficiently in her right mind that she knew right from wrong, which is why a conviction and accountability were appropriate and necessary in her case. The bigger question, however, is whether Ms. Isaac will take advantage of the help of her probation officer and her mental-health providers, because what we want most is for Ms. Isaac to get better and for her not to repeat this kind of behavior, for her and everyone else’s sake.”

Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney Anthony J. Balady prosecuted Ms. Isaac’s case.

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