Ellisa Martinez -- the woman who recently received a two-year prison sentence after sending a threatening email to
right-wing radio host Joyce Kaufman, leading to the lockdown of more
than 300 Broward County schools -- has finally given her side of the story in the incident.
Martinez -- who hasn't spoken publicly since her arrest, aside from a statement prepared by her attorney after she pleaded guilty sent the Pulp a letter from the Federal Detention Center in Miami -- says the email she sent was meant as "obvious sarcasm."
The email, in which Martinez feigned Tea Party-alignment with Kaufman and mentioned she was planning "something big" at several places in Broward County, wasn't quite interpreted as sarcasm.
The judge in her case reportedly said Martinez was attempting to induce "maximum havoc," although Martinez disagrees.
Martinez, who practices Buddhism, says she's never owned a gun and doesn't support violence for conflict resolution.
"Be clear that I am not antigovernment," she says. "The email was in fact making fun of people who are."
Unfortunately for Martinez, federal authorities didn't interpret her email that way.
"It never occurred to me at the time that such a response could be taken literally within its context," she says. "I regret and have apologized to the court and have spent over half a year in a federal detention center for the unexpected drama and confusion that followed on that day."
Martinez blames Kaufman's "hateful comments" about ethnic groups and
the "if ballots don't work, bullets will" statement she made at a Tea
Party rally -- which Martinez says she "took as voter intimidation, threatening to peaceful and fair elections in the state of Florida."
"The fact is, the email in this case was nothing more than a satire of Mrs. Kaufman's loose canon [sic], anti-government gun talk," she says.
She also points the finger at several South Florida news outlets, Joyce Kaufman's WFTL in particular, for "misinforming the public" and leading to the hysteria surrounding her case.
Check out Martinez's letter below:
Ellisa Martinez Letter
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