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The Honolulu Advertiser


By Jim Dooley
Advertiser Staff Writer

Posted on: Thursday, December 24, 2009

Threat suspect held for mental exam

 • Timing of Obama's family vacation in Hawaii is 'perfect'
Hawaii news photo - The Honolulu Advertiser

Kristy L. Roshia

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A woman who the Secret Service says threatened to kill first lady Michelle Obama has been ordered held for a mental competency examination.

Kristy L. Roshia, 35, appeared in federal court yesterday morning for a detention hearing on a charge of threatening bodily harm as well as a charge of assaulting a Secret Service agent after she was arrested Saturday.

She could face five years if convicted on the charge of threatening bodily harm and eight years for the assault on the federal agent.

Magistrate Judge Barry Kurren granted a prosecutor's motion to delay the detention hearing pending results of the mental exam.

He scheduled another hearing Feb. 9.

Roshia sat quietly during the brief proceeding, clad in a white prison jumpsuit.

She was represented by federal Deputy Public Defender Shanlyn Park, who did not oppose the motion for a competency exam.

First Assistant U.S. Attorney Elliot Enoki said the government "will take very seriously any threat against the president or any member of his family."

Enoki said the government's reaction was particularly acute since President Obama and his family are scheduled to begin a 10-day vacation in the Islands today.

According to a sworn affidavit filed Monday by Secret Service Special Agent John Woodruff:

Roshia has a history of making threatening and rambling phone calls to the Secret Service office in Boston.

She sent a letter in November from Hawai'i to the Boston office that contained photographs of her along with poems and "rambling love letters" to a nonexistent Secret Service agent.

On Nov. 10, she called the Boston office and told a receptionist, "I will kill Michelle Obama" and "I will kill Marines."

On Dec. 19, Woodruff and two other agents interviewed Roshia at a Käne'ohe Bay Drive residential address. She told them she had traveled to Hawai'i in September "to protect Obama" and since then has been "working the golf course at the Marine Base" at Käne'ohe.

She told the agents that she knew "the exact location" where President Obama and his family would stay during their Christmas vacation here, according to the affidavit.

That information was "consistent" with the itinerary of the Obama family at the Secret Service office here, Woodruff wrote.

Roshia told the agents she had "visited this specific location" — believed to be the same Kailua Beach home where the Obamas have previously stayed — and "saw Secret Service agents around."

Agents then arrested her for threatening the first lady.

While in custody at the Honolulu field office of the Secret Service, Roshia "lunged at and assaulted" an agent by "striking him in the arms and face," Woodruff said.

"Roshia further claimed that she would 'blow away the whole Oval Office,' " the affidavit said.

Federal records show that a woman named Kristy Roshia was arrested in Tewksbury, Mass., in 2007 on a Washington, D.C., charge of threatening bodily harm. She pleaded guilty to the charge and was placed on two years' probation.

According to Woodruff's affidavit, Roshia appeared at Secret Service headquarters in Washington, D.C., in May 2007 and threatened to kill an agent there as well as "any woman that got in her (Roshia's) way."

Enoki said yesterday he did not know when Roshia traveled to Hawai'i and could not comment on specific aspects of the case.

Defense lawyer Park declined to comment outside court.