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By Fred Guarino

The Lowndes Signal

After a Montgomery County District judge allowed a Montgomery County resident charged with making terrorist threats, but out on bond, to go to Lowndes County on Friday, Feb. 3, he was arrested on a federal grand jury indictment on Tuesday, Feb. 8.

According to federal court officials, Matthew E. Shashy was released into the custody of his parents under the conditions imposed by the Montgomery County District Court to surrender to the US Marshalls Service today, Thursday, Feb. 9, for his initial appearance and arraignment at 2 p.m. before Judge Terry Moorer within the Middle District of Alabama.

According to Captain Regina Duckett of the Montgomery Police Department, on Jan. 4, MPD charged Matthew E. Shashy, 28 of Montgomery, with “three counts of making a terrorist threat in reference to multiple instances of threatening and anti-government graffiti that was located in three separate areas in the city: MPD headquarters, the state Capitol and the Day Street gate to Maxwell AFB.”

She said, “Shashy was taken into custody following a 12-hour standoff. There were no injuries during the standoff.”

According to court documents, through his attorneys, Shashy made a motion for leave of the court to permit him to go to a family farm in eastern Lowndes County.

According to the motion, since his release from jail, Shashy has gone through secure inpatient medical care and was released from that with aftercare instructions for daily patient medical care and has been on electronic monitoring.

The court’s order of Jan. 20 setting out conditions of Shashy’s release from jail provided that he could not leave the state or county without leave of court.

Shashy’s family has a farm in the eastern part of Lowndes County, which is closer to the city of Montgomery than many parts of Montgomery County where he would still be under electronic monitoring, and “It is thought that if he were allowed to go to the farm and do some work there, it would benefit him.”

Montgomery District Judge W. Troy Massey ordered on Friday, Feb. 3 that “Defendant’s motion to be allowed to travel to Lowndes County is hereby granted.”

According to federal court officials, the federal grand jury indictment of Shashy was filed on Jan. 11 and was unsealed on Feb. 7 upon his arrest.

The federal grand jury indictment reads,

“On or about January 3, 2017, in Montgomery County, within the Middle District of Alabama,
the defendant, MATTHEW ELLIOTT SHASHY, did knowingly forcibly assault, resist, oppose, impede, intimidate, and interfere with any person designated in Section 1114 of Title 18, United States Code, including any member of the uniformed services, while such officer and employee was engaged in and on account of the performance of official duties, and any person assisting such an officer and employee in the performance of such duties and on account of that assistance while engaged in and on account of the performance of official duties, and in the commission of these acts used a deadly and dangerous weapon, including any weapon intended to cause death and danger but that fails to do so by reason of a defective component, in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Sections 11 1(a)(1) and (b).”