USA v. Luke Wenke | Transcripts | Violation Hearings (2023)

The two transcripts below contain word-for-word accounts of what was said during court hearings that took place on June 21st, 2023 and June 23rd, 2023. Luke Wenke was accused of violating the terms of his federal supervised release by indirectly contacting his cyberstalking victim via an encrypted email that was sent to the victim’s business partner.

Titled “George Floyd is dead and that’s a good thing” and sent just weeks after Luke Wenke’s release from federal prison, the vitriolic email consisted of a two-page diatribe about perceived injustices that the author believed they had suffered at the hands of the American justice system. The writer also blamed the victim for their felony cyberstalking conviction and subsequent imprisonment.

U.S. Attorney David Rudroff emphasized how the email resembled Luke Wenke’s known verbiage and accused Wenke of knowing that the recipient was likely to pass the email on to the victim. Wenke’s public defender argued that the prosecution couldn’t prove its allegation against the defendant, given the email’s obscure origins, and that even if Wenke had sent the email, he may not have knowingly violated the terms of his supervision. In other words, he may have been unaware that by contacting the victim’s business partner, he was violating the court-imposed contact ban prohibiting him from indirectly interacting with his victim.

During the hearings, the court heard testimony from Luke Wenke’s probation officer, an FBI agent involved in the investigation, and an investigator who works for the federal public defender’s office. Wenke was ultimately found guilty of violating the conditions of his supervised released and sentenced to time served. The judge alo extended the length of Wenke’s supervised release and ordered him to undergo a mental evaluation.