Man sentenced to prison for sending dead rat to ex-wife in Florida

TAMPA, Fla. (WKMG) -- An Indiana man has been sentenced to four years and 10 months in federal prison for threatening his ex-wife over several years and mailing a dead rat to her Florida home.

Romney Christopher Ellis, 57, of Indianapolis, Indiana, was sentenced Tuesday in Tampa federal court, according to court records. He pleaded guilty in April to making interstate threats and mailing injurious articles.

According to a criminal complaint, Ellis had engaged in a four-year-long campaign of harassment against his ex-wife, who lives in Tampa, through text messages, photographs, videos and mailings. He threatened to decapitate and set her on fire, investigators said. He routinely made racially and sexually charged statements in the text messages, including sending sexually explicit images of himself. Ellis sent text messages stating that he had traveled from Indiana to Florida to see his ex-wife. On one occasion, Ellis mailed a package to the victim's home containing a dead rat and black rose.

Postal inspectors executed a search warrant at Ellis's Indianapolis home in February. Prosecutors said they recovered a handwritten note containing the names and addresses of his ex-wife, as well as her family and friends.