Malden man gets 25 years for plotting to assassinate Martha Coakley and a federal judge

A Malden man who blamed two officials for being part of an alleged conspiracy to steal his house will likely spend the rest of his life in federal prison for planning a murder spree with the weapons he bought from an arms dealer who turned out to be an undercover FBI agent.

A federal judge in New Hampshire yesterday ordered Edward McLarnon, 69, sent away for 25 years following his conviction earlier this year on charges of receiving an unregistered silencer, receiving firearms with the intent to commit murder, receiving explosive materials and receiving an explosive with the intent to harm persons or property. Prosecutors said McLarnon planned to use the weapons to kill then Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley, Boston federal Judge F. Dennis Saylor and the man who married McLarnon's ex-wife.

According to court documents, McLarnon's ire at Coakley and Saylor stemmed from their roles in the foreclosing of his house - Coakley from her days as an attorney for Deutsche Bank, which foreclosed on his house, Saylor because he was the federal judge who dismissed his lawsuit over the foreclosure.

McLarnon's attorney argued for a sentence of about 12 1/2 years in part because McLarnon hated Coakley for her work as a private attorney, rather than as an "official," for whom attempted assassination carries a higher penalty. The US Attorney's office, however, countered with the fact that the day McLarnon purchased the rifle and ammunition he planned to use to kill her in 2014 - when Coakley was attorney general - FBI agents found a letter in McLarnon's car addressed to her, in which:

[T]he defendant asked AG Coakley to help clean up what he saw as corruption in the Attorney General's office. After threatening that "we" may "have to use our Second Amendment rights to protect ourselves and our property from a counterfeiting racketeering scheme operated by lawyers and judges at war with Massachusetts homeowners" the defendant accused Coakley's "Trial Division [of] knowingly representing guilty state actors" that "conspired with Deutsche Bank, their law firms, and [a] convicted robo-signer." ... The Defendant concluded his letter by asking the then-Attorney General: "Is it not incumbent on you to clean up your Consumer Fraud Unit and Trial Division and prosecute them as they overtly conspire with state actors to aid international banks and debt collector law firms operate a criminal enterprise that steal houses from Massachusetts citizens?"

McLarnon's lawyer also argued that his client never really got close enough to actually trying to kill the two officials - and that a form of post-traumatic stress syndrome brought on by having both his son and house taken away meant he was not fully to blame for his actions.

Prosecutors disagreed, but said they were asking for a 25-year sentence - rather than the 40-year sentence they could have - because of McLarnon's age and health problems.

Such a sentence would protect the public by ensuring the defendant’s incarceration until he is approximately 90 years old, at which time another "form of punishment such as home confinement might be equally efficient as and less costly than incarceration."

McLarnon was tried in New Hampshire because that's where he arranged to meet with the gun dealer who was really an FBI agent to buy the weaponry he wanted. The US Attorney's office reports:

Evidence presented at trial showed that in October 2015, defendant McLarnon made contact with a person he believed to be an arms dealer (who was actually an undercover FBI agent) for the purpose of buying illegal weapons. After negotiating with the agent at a store in Chichester and paying a total of $700 cash, on November 6, 2015, the defendant took possession of a .22 caliber pistol with silencer, an AK-47 style semi-automatic rifle, and explosives, along with ammunition for the firearms. He then was arrested at a rest stop in Seabrook, NH.