GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. -- A federal judge in Grand Rapids has sentenced a 45-year-old Muskegon man to 15 years in prison for stalking and being a felon in possession of firearms.
U.S. Attorney Mark Totten said Mitchell Pierce had pleaded guilty to the charges. Totten called it "one of the worst stalking cases, certainly, that our office has seen in many, many years.
"It brings a measure of justice in a case that we've been working on for a significant amount of time now."
Totten said Pierce pleaded guilty in August 2021 to assaulting his then-wife. He was ordered to have no contact with her. They divorced. But while the no contact order was in place, Totten says Pierce began repeatedly calling, texting, and emailing his ex-wife, threatening to harm and kill her, as well as her children and others.
"Mitchell Pierce waged a months-long terrifying campaign that consisted of multiple incidents of stalking against the defendant in this case and intimate partner," Totten said.
Recently, Pierce pleaded guilty to stalking and being a felon in possession of firearms. Totten described one of the texts that he said Pierce sent to the victim.
"Where he shared with the victim his intent to torture her, to bind her, to take a razor blade and cut two-inch slices around her body. To sexually assault her with barbed wire and then to decapitate her," Totten said.
### Photo: Mark Totten, second from left, flanked by Criminal Division Chief Alexis Sanford (in blue), and Assistant U.S. Attorney Jennifer McManus.