A former state prison inmate was sentenced in federal court Tuesday for mailing a letter threatening to injure and kill a Monroe County Common Pleas Judge.

Devon Williams, 25, will spend 48 months in prison followed by three years of supervised release, according to the sentence handed down by Senior U.S. District Court Judge James M. Munley.While an inmate at the State Correctional Institution in Albion, Pennsylvania, Williams mailed a letter from the prison in January 2014 to Judge Margherita P. Worthington's chambers at the Monroe County Courthouse in Stroudsburg. The letter threatened harm and death to the judge.Williams was indicted by a federal grand jury in September 2014 as a result of an investigation by the United States Postal Inspection Service and the state police.In imposing the sentence, Munley noted the defendant's history of violence, the serious nature of the crime, the impact on the victim, and the need to protect the public and deter others from committing similar crimes.Assistant U.S. Attorney Francis P. Sempa prosecuted the case.