Woman threatens her kids' foster parents; buys rifle

Mike Donoghue | The Burlington (Vt.) Free Press

WATERBURY, Vt. — A woman who threatened to harm the foster parents of her children was arrested on federal gun charges after buying a rifle, court records show.

Jamie Ransom, 34, is prohibited from possessing any firearm because she is a convicted felon, the Federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives said. Ransom's case comes one month after a state social worker was gunned down with two rifle shots as she left the offices of the Department for Children and Families in Barre, Vt.

“According to local law enforcement, Ransom has also within the last month made threats to harm the foster parents of her children,” ATF Special Agent Ben Cohen said in a court affidavit.

Jody Herring, 40, of South Barre, Vt., has pleaded not guilty to a first-degree murder charge in connection with the Aug. 7 death of Lara Sobel of Montpelier, Vt. Herring has said she was upset that the child-welfare agency had taken away her 8-year-old daughter, records show.

Ransom’s arrest comes after a two-day investigation by the ATF, Barre City and Waterbury Police Departments, Waterbury Chief Joby Feccia said.

When investigators confronted Ransom about the firearm, she told them the gun was next door at an upstairs apartment, Cohen said. Ransom’s boyfriend, Tim Perry, accompanied the agent as they went into the apartment and directed agents to the gun, a Rossi Model S.A. 243 caliber rifle.

“Ransom claimed she had purchased the firearm for a child,” Cohen wrote in his court affidavit.

Ransom believed that she could possess firearms because her felony conviction did not count after seven years, Cohen wrote. She has a 2006 convictions for passing a forged check and was sentenced to one year of probation.

She is due to appear Friday for an initial hearing in U.S. District Court in Burlington, Vt., on the federal firearms change.

Ransom also is due Oct. 15 in Vermont Superior Court in Barre on state charges including driving while license suspended and disorderly conduct, Feccia said.

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