A bitter ex-husband’s relentless campaign to harass his former partner went so far that he threatened to decapitate her and set her on fire, routinely sent her pornographic material and once mailed her a package with a dead rat and a black rose, authorities said Friday.
The Indiana man, 55-year-old Romney Ellis, faces up to five years in federal prison after pleading guilty this week to making threats and mailing a dead animal using the U.S. Postal Service.
Prosecutors say the creep spent the past four years harassing his ex-wife through text messages, photographs and videos that often included racially and sexually charged statements as well as sexually explicit images of himself.
“I pray everyday I wake up, everyday I go to sleep that you are gang raped,” Ellis allegedly said in a June 2019 text message, weeks before he mailed her the dead rat.
“I will rip your head off your shoulders and s–t down your throat,” he said in an October 2019 message, court records show.
At times, Ellis texted the woman saying he had traveled from Indianapolis to Florida’s Hillsborough County, where she lives, to see and harm the victim, authorities said.
The man was arrested on domestic violence charges at least twice during their marriage, which officially ended in 2014, according to a criminal complaint.
Following a lengthy investigation, federal authorities searched his home on Feb. 13 and found a handwritten note containing the names and addresses of the victim and her family and friends. He was then charged by the U.S. Attorney’s Office of the Middle District of Florida.
Ellis is scheduled to be sentenced on July 30.
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