United States of America v. Damon L. Taylor

In the
United States Court of Appeals
For the Seventh Circuit
____________________
No. 24-1007
U NITED S TATES OF A MERICA,
Plaintiff-Appellee,
v.
DAMON L. TAYLOR ,
Defendant-Appellant
____________________
Appeal from the United States District Court for the
Northern District of Indiana, Fort Wayne Division.
No. 1:23-cr-00016-HAB-SLC-1 — Holly A. Brady, Chief Judge.
____________________
A RGUED O CTOBER 28, 2024 — DECIDED A UGUST 21, 2025
____________________
Before R OVNER , BRENNAN , and S T. EVE, Circuit Judges.
R OVNER , Circuit Judge. A jury convicted Damon Taylor on
two counts of threatening to assault a federal law enforcement
officer in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 115(a)(1)(B). He appeals his
conviction, arguing that the district court committed cumula-
tive error by (a) admitting into evidence, pursuant to Fed. R.
Evid. 404(b), testimony concerning his other interactions
with, or concerning, the federal employee who was the object
of the charged threats, while (b) excluding testimony from

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2 No. 24-1007
mental health professionals who met with Taylor following a
civil commitment, and two police officers who had interac-
tions with Taylor during which he made threatening state-
ments to them. He also challenges the sufficiency of the evi-
dence as to the second charge on the ground that the threat-
ening statement in question was directed to her personal so-
cial media account and was seen by the AUSA at home, after
regular work hours. We affirm his conviction.
I.
Taylor was charged with threatening an Assistant United
States Attorney (“AUSA”) in Fort Wayne, Indiana, on May 20,
2022, and again on February 15, 2023, in violation of section
115(a)(1)(B). The AUSA in question had formerly worked in
the Allen County, Indiana prosecutor’s office for some 20
years before becoming an AUSA.
Section 115(a)(1)(B) makes it a crime to “threaten[ ] to as-
sault, kidnap, or murder … a Federal law enforcement officer
… with intent to impede, intimidate, or interfere with such …
law enforcement officer while engaged in the performance of
official duties, or with intent to retaliate against such … law
enforcement officer on account of the performance of official
duties[.]” A section 115(a)(1)(B) charge requires proof of a
true threat, i.e., a serious expression of intent to do harm to
another; it is that sort of threat that removes the statement in
question from the protection of the First Amendment. See Vir-
ginia v. Black, 538 U.S. 343, 35960 (2003); Watts v. United States,
394 U.S. 705, 708 (1969) (per curiam). Pursuant to Counterman
v. Colorado, 600 U.S. 66 (2023), the test for whether the defend-
ant has actually threatened the victim is not objective but ra-
ther depends on proof of how the defendant subjectively un-
derstood his conduct. In particular, the defendant must have

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No. 24-1007 3
some subjective understanding of the threatening nature of
his speech: he must either know that the recipient of his state-
ment will regard it as a threat of violence, or, at the least, he
must consciously disregard a substantial and unjustifiable
risk that the recipient of his statement would regard it as a
threat of violence. Id. at 73, 79. Put another way, the defendant
at a minimum must be aware that the recipient could regard
his statements as threatening violence but choose to utter the
statements anyway. Id. at 79; R. 78 at 19. The required mens rea
is thus one of recklessness. 600 U.S. at 79, 82.
Taylor first visited the AUSA’s office in the E. Ross Adair
Federal Building in downtown Fort Wayne on May 16, 2022,
to discuss threats he allegedly was receiving from a defendant
who previously had been prosecuted by the U.S. Attorney’s
office. He asked to see the AUSA, but when she greeted him
at the entrance to the office, it seemed that she was not the
attorney he was expecting. The AUSA proceeded to have a
five- to 10-minute conversation with Taylor, speaking to him
through a window that separated the non-public, interior por-
tion of the office from the public waiting area. Although she
attempted to elicit from him the details of his concern, Taylor
was not responsive. Eventually, Taylor changed the subject to
his personal property, expressing the belief that the AUSA
was in possession of his electronic benefits transfer card (used
for public assistance, including food stamps). When the
AUSA said that neither she nor her office had the card, he be-
came upset, raised his voice, and began pacing around the re-
ception area. He remarked that he had spoken with the Attor-
ney General and that he was not going to do anything, but “if
people didn’t quit[ ] lying to him, he was going to start shoot-
ing things up.” R. 116 at 160; see also R. 116 at 140. When the
AUSA admonished him not to make threats, Taylor denied

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4 No. 24-1007
making any threats and left. The branch supervisor of the U.S.
Attorney’s office and the court security officers (“CSOs”) in
the building were informed of Taylor’s conduct. A security
alert was issued with Taylor’s photograph and other identify-
ing information, and thereafter Taylor was not allowed into
the building without being escorted by a security officer.
On May 20, 2022, Taylor visited the Allen County prose-
cutor’s office and demanded to speak with the AUSA (who
no longer worked there). Taylor’s demeanor was so hostile
and aggressive that the security officer who spoke with him
released the holster on his gun so that he could draw it
quickly if need be, and the officer asked Taylor to leave the
premises. The officer also reminded Taylor that the AUSA
worked in the federal courthouse (four or five blocks away).
Taylor complained that he was getting the run-around and
threatened to come back and shoot the security officer and
shoot at the building. A former colleague of the AUSA’s sent
a text to her to warn her that Taylor had visited the county
building, that he had mentioned the AUSA’s name, and that
he had made threats .
Later that same day, Taylor showed up at the federal
courthouse and demanded to speak with the AUSA. The
AUSA declined to see him, and a CSO told him that she was
in a meeting but that he was welcome to wait. (In the mean-
time, a CSO was dispatched to secure the AUSA, the U.S.
Marshals were summoned, and the AUSA was held in a park-
ing lot outside of the building.) After Taylor used a restroom
in the building, he told CSO Ronnie Boxell, who was escorting
him, “I don’t know what meeting she is in, but it is not any[
]more important than her seeing me, getting my stuff back.
And if she doesn’t, it’s going to get real. I will be at the house

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No. 24-1007 5
tonight.” R. 117 at 38. While gesturing toward the Allen
County courthouse, he added, “Her blood will be on her
hands.” R. 117 at 38. Then, turning back toward the main hall-
way in the federal courthouse, he repeated, “Or her blood will
be on her hands.” R. 117 at 39.1 Taylor then went to sit on a
stone bench at the front of the Adair building lobby. When the
Marshals arrived, Taylor’s CSO escort advised them of the
threat Taylor had uttered and the Marshals escorted Taylor
from the building. When Taylor again demanded to see the
AUSA and was told he could not, he became irate, screamed
profanities and epithets, threatened to kill the AUSA, and
likewise threatened a Marshals Task Force officer (“Bitch,
come here and I will shoot you too, motherfucker.”). R. 117 at
225. Thereafter, the Fort Wayne police began to conduct peri-
odic security checks on the AUSA’s home, and the AUSA was
advised to install a home security system. The AUSA herself
also made sure her family members knew what Taylor looked
like, and she became more security conscious, regularly
checking to make sure the garage, windows, and doors of her
home were closed and locked.
The threats that Taylor uttered on May 20 would later be-
come the basis for Count One of the indictment, which
charged Taylor with threatening to assault and murder the
AUSA.
As a result of the May 20 threats, the Marshals Service
opened an investigation. On June 1, a Deputy U.S. Marshal
1 U.S. Marshals Task Force officer Derrick Demorest later testified that ac-
cording to Boxell, Taylor had said, “I will show up at her house and shoot
her and the blood will be on your hands,” or words to that effect. R. 117 at
230.

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6 No. 24-1007
interviewed Taylor at the Parkview Behavioral Health Insti-
tute or “Park Center,” which provides both inpatient and out-
patient mental health services. Taylor admitted he went to see
the AUSA at the federal building and complained that she
had documents that belonged to him. He told the Marshal
that the AUSA “knew what this was about, that this had been
going on for 25 years,” and that the AUSA had “been after
him” since she was a county prosecutor. R. 117 at 108, 110.
When the Marshal inquired about his threats, Taylor replied
“[W]hat threats[?]” or “[W]hat about it[?]” R. 117 at 107, 117.
When he was asked about his “blood on her hands” comment,
Taylor said he didn’t want to talk about it and terminated the
interview. R. 117 at 108. Taylor also mentioned something
about not being allowed into the federal building.
Taylor visited the Adair federal building again in June and
September, 2022. On June 9, he asked CSO Boxell to give a
message to the AUSA (whom he referred to as a “bitch”) that
he would be contacting the news media. He also asked the
CSO to “tell that big ass Marshal he can suck my dick.” R. 117
at 44. On September 23, he asked the CSO on duty at the en-
trance to tell the AUSA that “the ball is rolling.” R. 116 at 236.
In November of 2022, Taylor began sending messages to
or about the AUSA through the Facebook social media plat-
form:
On November 25, he messaged a friend that “I
wanna s@#ke dat short ass BITCH ASS prosecu-
tor. I got something for dat BITCH.” R. 54 at 2;
R. 117 at 151–52.
On November 27, he sent a private Facebook
message consisting of a waving-hand emoji to

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No. 24-1007 7
the AUSA’s Facebook profile. Taylor Sep. App.
5; R. 54 at 2; R. 117 at 156–60.
On November 30, he messaged a friend that
“I’ve now caught D.A. [AUSA’s full name] at-
tempting to frame me.” #Facts!!!!” R. 54 at 2;
R 117 at 153–56.
On December 3, 2022, Taylor sent a message
comprised of an emoji of a hand with the mid-
dle finger raised to the AUSA’s Facebook pro-
file. Taylor Sep. App. 5; R. 54 at 2; R. 117 at 156–
60.
On December 12, 2022, Taylor messaged a
friend “I’m asking you this because a federal
D.A. has been trying to frame me on fraudu-
lent/false bullshit and I have popped & checked
her ass.” R. 92 at 5 ¶ 12; R. 117 at 156.
On February 15, 2023, Taylor telephoned the AUSA at
work and she agreed to take the call, hoping that she could
find out what she had done to upset him and to try and help
him, and also believing that if she declined to take the call, he
would become angry and issue more threats. When she
picked up the call, Taylor remarked that she knew who he
was and what he wanted. When the AUSA replied that she
did not know what he wanted and asked how she could help
him, Taylor repeatedly asked her to call him back. The AUSA
refused to do so because she did not want him to see her direct
line number on his phone. Taylor eventually terminated the
call by hanging up on the AUSA. He thereafter called the of-
fice repeatedly and asked to speak with her but was refused.
During one of those follow-up calls, Taylor told the legal

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8 No. 24-1007
administrative specialist he was speaking with that if the
AUSA did not return his call, she should “get the news sta-
tions ready.” R. 117 at 85, 93.
A short while later, at 4:59 p.m. that afternoon, Taylor sent
the following message to the AUSA’s Facebook profile:
Taylor Sep. App. 5. The AUSA did not see this message until
she returned home for the evening. She reported the threat to
security personnel at work. She also sent a sarcastic message
to a colleague joking about the threat, which she said was a
means of coping with the stress of the situation.
The foregoing February 15 Facebook message to the
AUSA formed the basis for Count Two of the indictment.
Taylor placed two brief calls to the U.S. Attorney’s office
again the next day, February 16.
And on the morning of February 17, Taylor sent a series of
Facebook messages to five different individuals on Facebook
with the same last name as the AUSA and sought to have
them relay his messages to the AUSA:
I’m fed up with [AUSA’s first and middle name]
got damn BS.

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No. 24-1007 9
I’m sick of [AUSA’s first name] bullshit and I
would like for you to tell her to quit fucking
playing around with me.
Tell [AUSA’s first and middle name] she best
find another fool to frame and fuck over cause I
ain’t the one god damnit.
Tell [AUSA’s first and middle name] she best
find someone else to play fucking games with
cause I’m not the one god damnit. I’m done.
R. 54 at 2–3; R. 117 at 160–63. Later that same day, Taylor mes-
saged a friend, “You better [not] keep letting that piece of shit
BITCH [AUSA’s full name] play mind games with y’all cause
I have a run in with her.… Mfka’s gonna get a show.” R. 54 at
3; R. 117 at 164.
A criminal complaint against Taylor was filed on February
17, 2023, and Taylor was arrested four days later. A grand jury
returned an indictment against him the following month
charging him with two violations of section 115(a)(1)(B):
(1) on May 20, 2022, threatening to assault and murder a U.S.
employee, with the intent to impede, intimidate, and interfere
with such employee during the performance of her official
duties; and (2) on February 15, 2023, threatening to assault a
U.S. employee, with the same intent.
Although the charges against Taylor were based on the re-
marks he made to the AUSA on May 20, 2022, and the Face-
book message he sent to her on February 15, 2023, the district
court granted the government leave (over Taylor’s objection)
to introduce the entirety of the foregoing course of conduct by
Taylor (including statements not made to the AUSA and
events that did not include the AUSA) pursuant to Federal

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10 No. 24-1007
Rule of Evidence 404(b), in order to establish Taylor’s motive,
intent, plan, knowledge, and identity, and also to give context
to the specific threats with which he was charged. R. 120 at
25–26. The court denied the government’s additional request
to admit evidence that Taylor had contacted firearms dealers
at and around the same time he called the U.S. Attorney’s of-
fice on February 15, 2023. R. 120 at 26.
The district court denied Taylor’s request to admit testi-
mony from a nurse practitioner and a case worker who had
provided outpatient evaluation and support to Taylor at or
through the Park Center, where Taylor had been involuntar-
ily committed for a week in July of 2022. See R. 92 at 6 ¶¶ 22-
23.2 Taylor argued that the observations of these profession-
als, near in time to the charged threats, were relevant and ad-
missible to the same extent that the lay testimony of a defend-
ant’s family, friends, and co-workers might be admissible to
establish the defendant’s state of mind. Taylor posited that the
testimony would be probative of his intent to impede, intimi-
date, or interfere with the AUSA in performance of her duties
and his subjective understanding of the threatening nature of
his statements and whether he consciously disregarded a sub-
stantial risk that his statements would be viewed as threaten-
ing violence. See Clark v. Arizona, 548 U.S. 735, 757–59 (2006)
(discussing categories of evidence that may bear on defend-
ant’s mens rea, including “observation evidence” from both
lay and expert witnesses as to how defendant thinks and
2 Taylor suffers from paranoid schizophrenia. At the time of his involun-
tary commitment, he was not taking his prescribed medication due to neg-
ative side effects, and he was sleepless for days at a time. R. 92 ¶ 127.

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No. 24-1007 11
behaves). The court heard a proffer of this testimony before
ruling on its admissibility.
The nurse practitioner testified that she had seen Taylor
on two occasions in September and October of 2022 for post-
hospitalization evaluations of his mental state to determine
whether any changes were warranted to the medications he
had been prescribed. When she saw Taylor in September
2022, he was pleasant, alert, cooperative, and oriented; his
thought process was “linear, logical, and coherent”; and his
intellect, attention, memory, and judgment were all appropri-
ate. R. 116 at 247–48. But when she saw him the following
month, he appeared more disheveled, irritable, restless, fidg-
ety, and more delusional—overall, “less mentally stable” and
“[m]ore aggressive.” R. 116 at 251. She did not recall Taylor
ever mentioning the AUSA or the federal courthouse to her.
The case worker testified that he had contact with Taylor
on approximately 15 to 20 occasions between July 2022 and
February 2023. Taylor’s demeanor depended on the day.
Sometimes Taylor was focused, grounded, and appropriate in
conversation; at other times, his thinking was tangential and
disorganized. Taylor expressed opinions about “the govern-
ment” generically, including that he was being watched or ob-
served by law enforcement; and the case worker tried to help
Taylor realize these “might be thoughts coming from a part of
[his] brain not using common sense or reality.” R. 116 at 263.
The case worker did not personally feel threatened by Taylor,
but he acknowledged that he had been assigned to Taylor af-
ter Taylor had threatened other staff members; the case
worker would manage Taylor’s behavior by rescheduling ap-
pointments if Taylor was too angry. The case worker did not
recall Taylor ever discussing the AUSA, the federal

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12 No. 24-1007
courthouse, or local government. He thought that Taylor
“might have said something” about a prosecutor during an
appearance in state court in late 2022 or early 2023 that the
case worker observed; but this could have been a reference to
the prosecutor in Taylor’s state case. R. 116 at 275.
After hearing the proffer, the district court denied Taylor’s
request to admit the testimony of these two witnesses. Taylor
relied on Clark as precedent supporting the testimony as ob-
servation evidence of his mental state. In that case, the de-
fendant was charged with first-degree murder under a statute
prohibiting the killing of a police officer in the line of duty.
The defendant’s friends and family had testified that in the
year prior to the murder, the defendant had engaged in in-
creasingly bizarre behavior: he believed that aliens, some dis-
guised as government agents, were trying to kill him and that
the only way to stop them was with bullets. The testimony of
his friends and family members thus bore directly on whether
the defendant knew that his victim was a police officer.3 By
contrast, the district court observed, the link between the
proffered testimony and Taylor’s mental state was “far more
attenuated.” R. 117 at 24. “None of the testimony offered dur-
ing the proffer relates to the alleged threats. Indeed, neither
witness recalled the defendant saying anything about [the
3 In Clark, the defendant argued at the Supreme Court level that although
this testimony was admitted at his bench trial, the trial judge did not con-
sider it in assessing his mens rea and finding him guilty. However, as the
district court pointed out, the Supreme Court concluded that the defend-
ant had not preserved that question. The district court also pointed out
that Clark turned on the particulars of Arizona law, which obviously has
no bearing here. In any case, we may assume, for purposes of Taylor’s
argument, that observation evidence as to his mental state would be ad-
missible if probative of his mens rea.

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No. 24-1007 13
AUSA] or a United States Attorney. R. 117 at 24. The evidence,
consequently, was not probative as to whether Taylor made
threatening statements to the AUSA with the requisite mens
rea.4
Taylor also sought to introduce testimony from two Fort
Wayne police officers who had encounters with him in late
June 2022. According to the written reports of these incidents,
on June 29, an officer in his official vehicle drove past Taylor,
who was riding a bike. Taylor shouted at the police officer,
accusing the officer of following him, and stating that he was
suing law enforcement entities. A bystander who flagged the
officer down told him that Taylor said he was going to shoot
the officer. On the following day, officers arrested Taylor pur-
suant to a 72-hour emergency commitment order, and when
Taylor was handcuffed, he was verbally aggressive, used pro-
fanity, and threatened to sue and beat the arresting officers.
In neither report was there any indication that Taylor had
mentioned the AUSA.
The district court excluded this testimony as well, reason-
ing that “testimony from Fort Worth Police Department offic-
ers regarding their observations of defendant on June 29 and
30, with respect to an unrelated incident … does not appear
4 The district court also excluded evidence concerning Taylor’s July 2022
civil commitment to the Park Center. The court deemed that commitment
“marginally relevant, if at all,” and that “the risk of confusing the jury is
much too high.” R. 116 at 18. Taylor was not asserting an insanity or a
mental-capacity defense; yet, in the court’s view, evidence of Taylor’s
commitment presented the risk that the jury might draw the impermissi-
ble inference that he was incapable of forming the requisite intent under
the statute. R. 116 at 18. That ruling is not at issue in this appeal.

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14 No. 24-1007
[to] have any relationship to the threats at issue in this case
and are further removed in time.” R. 116 at 15–16.
At the close of the government’s case in chief, Taylor’s
counsel moved for a judgment of acquittal pursuant to Fed.
R. Crim. P. 29(a) as to both counts of the indictment. As to
Count Two, Taylor argued that the victim AUSA received the
allegedly threating Facebook message on her private account
after business hours and not while she was working, so it did
not relate to her official duties. The court took the motion un-
der advisement.
In the defense case, Taylor called security officers at both
the Allen County and Adair federal buildings regarding their
interactions with Taylor on occasions when he showed up at
those buildings and discussed the AUSA and/or sought to see
her. The security guard on duty at the county building on
May 20, who had testified in the government’s case-in-chief
that Taylor had threatened to come back and shoot both him
and the building, testified in the defense case that Taylor left
the building once the guard began to reach for his phone to
call 9-1-1. Marshals Service Task Force officer Demorest, who
was present that same day at the Adair federal building, tes-
tified that Taylor declared he was going to speak to the AUSA
and there was nothing the officers could do about it; that Tay-
lor was loud, boisterous, sweating, and spewing profanities;
and that he directed a racial slur at Demorest and told the of-
ficer to “eat a dick.” R. 117 at 223. Demorest did not recall
hearing Taylor say anything about the AUSA’s blood being
on her hands, but he did recall that as Taylor walked away
from the federal building, he said to Demorest, “Bitch, come
here and I will shoot you too, motherfucker.” R. 117 at 224–
26. Finally, a CSO who was present when Taylor came to the

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No. 24-1007 15
Adair federal building on July 13, 2022, testified that he could
not recall who it was that Taylor wanted to see on that occa-
sion, but he did recall that Taylor was aggressive, angry, and
frustrated, and just before Taylor walked out of the building,
he said to the CSO, “You’re no better than the rest of them.”
R. 117 at 213.
In closing argument, Taylor’s counsel marshaled the mul-
tiple accounts of Taylor’s behavior to argue, among other
points, that Taylor had made specific, direct threatening state-
ments not only to the AUSA but to multiple other security of-
ficials who were armed and in some cases had large, intimi-
dating physiques, yet he was allowed to go on his way with-
out any official action being taken against him. R. 118 at 52–
53. Counsel suggested that Taylor’s behavior across all of
these incidents was irrational and delusional. R. 118 at 53, 62.
That in turn bore on the question of his intent: “Did he have a
subjective knowledge of or understanding of what he was
saying at the moment, or was he just blabbering, because he’s
completely irrational.” R. 118 at 53.
Because Taylor was not pursuing an insanity or dimin-
ished capacity defense, the jury was instructed that “[m]ental
disease, defect, or illness does not constitute a defense to the
charges in the Indictment.” R. 78 at 20; R. 118 at 103; see also
R. 117 at 132. As to the elements of the offense, the jury was
advised that it was the government’s obligation to prove, inter
alia, that “[t]he defendant intended to impede, intimidate, or
interfere with [a United States] employee while the employee
was engaged in the performance of official duties,” and that
“[t]he defendant had some subjective understanding of the
threatening nature of his statements.” R. 78 at 16, 17; R. 118 at
100–01. The jury was further instructed that:

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16 No. 24-1007
The defendant has a subjective understanding
of the threatening nature of his statements if, at
the time he made the statement[s], he con-
sciously disregarded a substantial and unjusti-
fiable risk that the recipient of his statements
would regard it as a threat of violence. Put dif-
ferently, the government must prove that the
defendant was aware that the recipient could
regard his statements as threatening violence
and delivered them anyway. In deciding
whether the defendant acted with a subjective
understanding of the threatening nature of his
statements, you may consider all of the evi-
dence.
R. 78 at 19; R. 118 at 103. The jury was also given the following
instruction as to what constitutes a threat:
To “threaten” means to make a statement that is
a serious expression of intent to inflict bodily
harm upon or take the life of another.
A threat does not need to be communicated di-
rectly to its intended victim, or specify a partic-
ular victim, or specify when it will be carried
out.
The government does not have to prove that the
defendant actually intended to carry out the
threat, or even that the defendant had the capac-
ity to do so. But lack of intent or lack of capacity
to carry out the threat can be relevant circum-
stances in deciding whether the defendant had

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No. 24-1007 17
a subjective understanding of the threatening
nature of his statements.
A communication is not a threat if it is merely
idle or careless talk, exaggeration, or something
said in a joking moment.
R. 78 at 18; R. 118 at 102–03. Finally, on several occasions dur-
ing the trial and in the final instructions, the jury was also
given a standard limiting instruction regarding Taylor’s
other, uncharged acts, which the court advised the jury that it
could consider the evidence “to help you decide whether the
defendant intended to impede, intimidate, or interfere with a
United States employee while she was engaged in the perfor-
mance of her official duties, and whether the defendant had
some understanding of the threatening nature of his state-
ments.” R. 78 at 13; R. 116 at 132, 230; R. 117 at 10, 80–81;
R. 118 at 99.
Taylor was ultimately convicted on both counts of the in-
dictment. Although Count One charged him with threatening
to both assault and murder the AUSA on May 20, 2022, the
jury convicted Taylor only of threatening to assault the officer
on that date but acquitted him of threatening to murder her.
After the trial concluded and the jury rendered its verdict,
the district court denied Taylor’s Rule 29 motion, noting “I
hereby make the finding that the evidence presented in this
case is sufficient to sustain the conviction with regard to
Counts One and Two. I also incorporate, in support of that
decision, the arguments articulated by the government at the

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18 No. 24-1007
time the motion was made.” R. 118 at 121–22.5 Taylor had not
renewed his Rule 29 motion at the close of evidence or after
the jury’s verdict.
The court subsequently ordered Taylor to serve a prison
term of 51 months. Taylor now appeals his conviction.
II.
A. Admission of government’s Rule 404(b) evidence while exclud-
ing Taylor’s proffered evidence from mental health profession-
als and police officers
Taylor contends that the district court deprived him of a
fair trial when it allowed the government to introduce evi-
dence of his uncharged statements and conduct surrounding
the two threatening communications for which he was
charged pursuant to Rule 404(b), but excluded evidence of the
other uncharged conduct that he wished to introduce to shed
light on his mens rea. Our review of the district court’s Rule
404(b) decisions is for abuse of discretion. E.g., United States v.
Edwards, 26 F.4th 449, 453 (7th Cir. 2022).
We note first that the district court properly admitted the
government’s Rule 404(b) evidence, and we do not under-
stand Taylor to argue otherwise, apart from his insistence that
it was one-sided and unfair for the court to allow the govern-
ment’s other-acts evidence while excluding his own. The gov-
ernment’s evidence was closely related to the two charged
threats, in that the evidence encompassed the full course of
defendant’s conduct surrounding the charged threats that he
5 See DiLeo v. Ernst & Young, 901 F.2d 624, 626 (7th Cir. 1990) (citing Walton
v. United Consumers Club, Inc., 786 F.2d 303, 313–14 (7th Cir. 1986); In re X-
Cel, Inc., 776 F.2d 130, 133 (7th Cir. 1985)).

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No. 24-1007 19
made to the AUSA, including his other statements to the
AUSA, his statements to other employees about her when at-
tempting to see the AUSA and the behavior he exhibited on
those occasions, his phone calls to the AUSA, and his social
media messages to and about the AUSA. In his reply brief,
Taylor suggests that his February 2023 Facebook messages to
people who had the same last name as the AUSA were not
part of this relevant course of conduct, because they were not
directed to the AUSA. But it is a ready inference from these
messages that Taylor either knew, assumed, or hoped these
individuals might be related to the AUSA and thus might con-
vey to her his messages. In other instances, Taylor was mes-
saging his own friends, but of course those messages too ref-
erenced the AUSA and bore on his intent with respect to the
AUSA. We see no abuse of discretion on the district court’s
part in admitting this evidence.
Taylor argues, however, that he was unfairly prejudiced
by the exclusion of his own proffered testimony of the two
mental health professionals and the two police officers who
had interacted with him relatively close in time to his interac-
tions with the AUSA.
The mental health professionals would have established
that Taylor’s demeanor and mood could vary from day to
day, and that on his bad days, Taylor’s distrust of authority
figures would manifest in conspiratorial thinking, anger, and
irrational behavior. The testimony of the police officers would
in turn have provided a concrete illustration of how Taylor’s
distrust and paranoia regarding authority figures could man-
ifest in explicit threats. As we understand it, one of defense
counsel’s purposes in offering this line of testimony was to
show that threatening an authority figure when Taylor was

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20 No. 24-1007
frustrated or angry was a fairly regular occurrence, and that
he did not follow through on the threats. As Taylor’s opening
brief explains with respect to the proffered testimony of the
mental health professionals, “Their observations, built over
time, would have contextualized Mr. Taylor’s odd comments
as normal for him, and were directed at everyone he inter-
acted with in authority.” Taylor Br. 33. And as his counsel put
it more colloquially to the jury, “His bark is louder than his
bite.” R. 116 at 125. Counsel’s second purpose was to show
that Taylor typically did not suffer any adverse conse-
quences—being arrested and/or charged with a crime in par-
ticular—as a result of his threats, such that he did not realize
that the targets of his statements might take them seriously.
In the defense view, this testimony would support arguments
that Taylor, when making threats against the AUSA, lacked
the intent to impede, intimidate, or interfere with the AUSA
in the performance of her duties as a federal law enforcement
officer and also that he did not subjectively appreciate the
threatening nature of his statements.
But for multiple reasons, the district court did not abuse
its discretion in rejecting this testimony, and Taylor was not
prejudiced by the district court’s ruling.
First, there is a difference between Taylor’s behavior dur-
ing mental health check-in sessions and the one-off encoun-
ters that the police officers would have described and Taylor’s
sustained, multi-month pattern of threatening behavior fo-
cused on the AUSA. None of these individuals could speak to
Taylor’s interaction with the victim in this case. Although
each of them had, to some extent, observed Taylor’s irrational
and aggressive or angry behavior, and in the case of the police
officers, his tendency to threaten authority figures, their

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No. 24-1007 21
testimony had limited, if any, probative value with respect to
Taylor’s intent with respect to the AUSA, his subjective un-
derstanding of the threatening nature of his statements, and
his conscious disregard for the likelihood that the AUSA
might perceive his statements as threatening violent action
against her.
Second, one might quarrel with the defense logic that Tay-
lor did not usually face serious consequences for his threats.
Although it is true that Taylor did not face criminal charges
for the threats he made to the two Fort Wayne police officers
or to the Marshals, CSOs, and other security officials who tes-
tified in this case, he did experience adverse consequences as
a result of his threating behavior. In the AUSA’s case, for ex-
ample, Taylor was admonished about not making threats
from his very first encounter with her; after that encounter,
his access to the federal building was restricted; he was ulti-
mately escorted from the federal building on May 20; in his
encounter with the security official on duty at the county
building on the same day, he turned on his heel and left after
the official began to dial 9-1-1; and he was interviewed in June
by a Deputy U.S. Marshal about the previous threats he had
made. So, although it may be true that Taylor did not suffer
criminal consequences for the threats he had made to others,
he was placed on notice from the start of his interactions with
the AUSA that his threatening statements and behaviors
could and would have repercussions.
Third, with respect to the nurse practitioner and the case
manager, although Taylor was not raising an insanity de-
fense, there was a risk that the jury might understand their
testimony to suggest that Taylor was incapable of appreciat-
ing how his words were received. Their proffered testimony

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22 No. 24-1007
derived solely from their interactions with Taylor as mental
health professionals evaluating his medical and psychological
needs and providing support to him; they had no knowledge
of the events at issue in this prosecution and, so far as their
testimony revealed, Taylor did not make threatening state-
ments to them. There was thus a risk that the jury might be
confused as to the purpose of their testimony and what bear-
ing it had on the charged offenses apart from Taylor’s mental
capacity. See Clark, 548 U.S. at 775 (“there is the potential of
mental-disease evidence to mislead jurors … through the
power of this kind of evidence to suggest that a defendant
suffering from a recognized mental disease lacks cognitive,
moral, volitional, or other capacity, when that may not be a
sound conclusion at all”).
Fourth, as to prejudice, although Taylor was not able to
elicit testimony from the two Fort Wayne police officers and
the two Park Center professionals, the testimony from other
witnesses who did testify enabled Taylor’s counsel to argue
that because Taylor had made threats to other individuals and
did not suffer adverse consequences, he might not have sub-
jectively appreciated that the AUSA might construe his state-
ments as genuine threats to her safety and lacked the intent to
interfere with her official duties. In closing, defense counsel
pointed out that Taylor threatened to shoot Demorest during
the May 20 incident at the federal building notwithstanding
the fact that Demorest was a large man and was armed at the
time, and Taylor was never charged with that threat. Citing
that as an example, counsel argued that Taylor was prone to
lash out irrationally without an intent to disrupt federal offi-
cials’ work and without the ability to appreciate how the tar-
gets of his threats would construe them. The rejected testi-
mony might have provided additional illustration of this

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No. 24-1007 23
tendency, but Taylor was not prevented from making his ar-
gument and we are not convinced that the excluded testi-
mony was likely to have had an impact on the jury’s verdict.
Ultimately, the behavior that the excluded mental health pro-
fessionals and the Fort Wayne police officers would have de-
scribed was consistent with what other witnesses had already
established: Taylor’s volatile emotional state, his paranoia re-
garding authority figures, and his tendency when frustrated
to issue threats of violent reprisal.
For these reasons, the district court did not abuse its dis-
cretion in disallowing this testimony, and Taylor was not ma-
terially harmed by the district court’s decision in any case.
B. Motion for judgment of acquittal as to Count Two based on Fa-
cebook message that was sent to AUSA’s personal social media
account
A charge under section 115(a)(1) requires an intent to in-
terfere with or impede the victim’s official duties. United
States v. Saunders, 166 F.3d 907, 912 (7th Cir. 1999). When Tay-
lor moved for a judgment of acquittal at the close of the gov-
ernment’s case, his argument with respect to Count Two,
which was based on the message he sent to the AUSA’s per-
sonal Facebook account, was that this social media communi-
cation was inherently personal in nature and in fact was re-
ceived by the AUSA at home after the conclusion of the work-
day. Thus, Taylor reasons, it could not have been intended to
interfere with her official duties.
There is an initial question whether Taylor failed to pre-
serve this argument, given that he did not renew his Rule
29(a) motion at the close of all evidence or following the jury’s
verdict. If he did forfeit the argument, then our review would

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24 No. 24-1007
be for plain error only rather than de novo. See Greer v. United
States, 593 U.S. 503, 507 (2021); United States v. Dinga, 609 F.3d
904, 907 (7th Cir. 2010). Taylor responds that he did not need
to renew his motion, given that the district court took under
advisement the motion he made at the close of the govern-
ment’s case and did not rule on the motion until the jury had
rendered its verdict, at which time the court denied the mo-
tion on the sufficiency of “the evidence in this case,” R. 118 at
123, which Taylor construes to mean all of the evidence, not
just the evidence presented in the government’s case-in-chief.
We need not resolve this dispute, because under any
standard of review, Taylor’s argument fails. Simply because
Taylor sent the February 15, 2023, threat to the AUSA via her
personal Facebook account, which she looked at after hours,
at her home, does not foreclose an inference that his intent
was to interfere with the performance of her duties as a fed-
eral prosecutor. Taylor’s counsel made this same argument to
the jury as a factual matter, and the jury obviously rejected it,
with good reason. It is clear from the evidence in this case that
when one avenue of communication with the AUSA was
closed off to Taylor, he simply resorted to another. Taylor’s
focus on the AUSA was related to her position and work as a
federal law enforcement officer, and nothing about the means
he used of communicating his threats to her, or where she re-
ceived them, detracts from that focus. Cf. United States v. Miah,
120 F.4th 99, 106, 108 & n.4 (4th Cir. 2024) (sustaining suffi-
ciency of section 115(a)(1)(B) charge based on defendant’s so-
cial media posts), pet’n for cert. filed, No. 25-5072 (U.S. July 10,
2025).

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No. 24-1007 25
III.
There is no dispute that Taylor suffers from significant
mental health challenges. Even so, he made threatening state-
ments to a federal law enforcement officer that were alarming
on their face. The district court provided Taylor a fair trial at
which his able counsel provided him with a vigorous defense,
and notwithstanding his arguments to the contrary, Taylor’s
counsel was able to marshal the admitted evidence in support
of an argument that he did not subjectively appreciate the
threatening nature of his statements, that he did not con-
sciously disregard the possibility that the AUSA would take
them as genuine threats to her safety, and that he did not in-
tend to impede, intimidate, or interfere with the AUSA in the
performance of her official duties. The jury concluded to the
contrary in convicting Taylor, and the evidence supports its
verdict. We AFFIRM Taylor’s conviction.

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