Justin Ward, 32, of Ironwood was sentenced Tuesday, Aug. 25, to time served and three years of supervised release for making threats to injure law enforcement, after posting online that he planned to kill federal immigration agents.

Chief U.S. District Judge James Peterson imposed the sentence in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Wisconsin after Ward pleaded guilty May 22 to making threats to injure law enforcement. Ward had been in custody since his January arrest and had already served time consistent with federal sentencing guidelines for the offense, according to WBUP/WJMN.

The case began Jan. 29 when the Gogebic County Sheriff's Office was investigating Ward for threatening to kill a local law enforcement officer. CBS News Detroit reported that the initial threat, made Jan. 28, targeted an Ironwood Public Safety worker — described by federal officials as a law enforcement officer — and that person's family.

When deputies found Ward was not at his residence, they checked his Facebook page and discovered he was traveling through northern Wisconsin toward Duluth, Minnesota. Deputies noticed eight comments posted in quick succession that included apparent threats against Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents, according to the CBS News Detroit report on the indictment.

At the time, ICE was conducting a widely publicized operation in Minneapolis that had drawn significant public attention. Phone tracing technology showed a cellphone believed to be Ward's was traveling from upper Michigan across northern Wisconsin. The location confirmed at one point was near Ashland, Wisconsin, which established jurisdiction for the federal court in Madison.

Ward was arrested in late January. A federal grand jury indicted him in February on a charge of using interstate commerce to transmit threats to injure another person. The charge carried a maximum penalty of five years in federal prison.

At sentencing, Judge Peterson found that Ward had experienced a mental health crisis in the period leading up to his conduct. The judge imposed supervised release conditions including a curfew and GPS monitoring, according to a statement from the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Western District of Wisconsin.

FBI Milwaukee said on X that Ward was sentenced for making threats to injure law enforcement in the Western District of Wisconsin.

The investigation was conducted by FBI Milwaukee's Eau Claire Resident Agency, FBI Detroit's Marquette Resident Agency and the Gogebic County Sheriff's Office. Assistant U.S. Attorney Corey Stephan prosecuted the case. U.S. Attorney Chadwick M. Elgersma announced the sentencing.