Kenneth Elser, United States Attorney for the Western District of Arkansas, has announced that Maverick Dean Bryan, 55, of Mineral Springs, appeared for arraignment Monday on seven counts of mailing threatening communications.
The arraignment hearing was before Judge Caroline M. Craven in the U.S. District Court in Texarkana.
Bryan was indicted by a federal grand jury on all seven counts on March 16. The file marked indictment states that Bryan mailed letters to the mayors of seven different cities within the state of Arkansas containing a threat to injure the mayors. The detention hearing for Bryan has been set for Monday, March 28 at 10 a.m.
The case is being investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the United States Postal Inspection Service, and the Howard County Sheriff’s Office. Assistant U.S. Attorney David Harris is prosecuting the case for the United States.
The letters went to mayors of Hope, Nashville, De Queen, Ashdown, Lewisville, Prescott and Murfreesboro. The indictment doesn’t specify the content of the letters except to say they were threatening.
Nashville Mayor Billy Ray Jones said he received his letter in January of 2015, and it contained a list of demands. Bryan threatened to hang the mayor from an oak tree on the courthouse lawn if the demands weren’t met. Mayor Jones said he thought he may have been the first of the mayors to receive the threatening letter.
From other sources, The Nashville Leader learned that the demands included posting the Ten Commandments.