Guilty plea from former Stanislaus clerk-recorder in death threats case

Karen Mathews Davis, former clerk-recorder of Stanislaus County, pleaded guilty Thursday to lying to federal agents investigating death threats she had sent to herself when she was a congressional candidate a couple of years ago.

Mathews Davis, 68, faces up to five years in federal prison when she is sentenced Sept. 28. She and her lawyer declined to comment after Thursday’s hearing in federal court.

Still unknown is how her case might affect, if at all, the man who spent 19 years behind bars based on Mathews Davis’ testimony when she was a popular public figure in Modesto. She moved to Lodi years ago.

Authorities had said they would revisit the older case, which ended in prison convictions for nine people involved in an extremist tax protest. Mathews Davis was the star prosecution witness then against Roger Steiner, saying he beat and cut her and sodomized her with a pistol in a 1994 ambush in her Modesto garage.

Steiner, 79, frail and using a walker for the past year, did not attend Thursday’s hearing. His Fresno attorney, Patrick Fortune, said he is disappointed that nothing was said in the hearing touching on Steiner or the older case.

“She was going down either way, so his presence wouldn’t make a difference,” Fortune said.

Check back for a full report.

This story was originally published June 1, 2017 at 11:04 AM with the headline "Guilty plea from former Stanislaus clerk-recorder in death threats case."