By Shayna Jacobs
DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
MANHATTAN SUPREME COURT — A white collar criminal who confessed to sending a package of suspicious powder to a Manhattan prosecutor while on bail was sentenced to prison on Friday.
After Jack Chang, 55, was arrested in April 2009 for scamming more than $100,000 from clients he helped prepare taxes, he began to send threatening notes to Assistant District Attorney Gilda Mariani at her office and home.
“I finally got my 9 mil gun and I am insane, you are responsible for my insanity and I will make sure that you get at least one for each and every year I spent incarcerated,” read an ominous June 9, 2009 note that was accompanied by a package of powder, later determined to be corn starch.
"You will be captured and before you are sent to hell you will taste hell on earth," read another note from Chang sent to Mariani's office.
As a prosecutor, Mariani handled two grand larceny cases against Chang. He was first convicted in 1995 for scamming money from clients he prepared taxes for. She then oversaw the case against him filed last year in her role as chief of the money laundering and tax crimes unit.
He served four months in jail for the first conviction and pleaded guilty to grand larceny the second time around, along with placing a false bomb or hazardous substance. Both are felony charges.
Manhattan Supreme Court Judge Roger Hayes sentenced Chang to 3 to 6 years in prison.
"Particularly since 9/11, what you did causes great fear to someone who receives a substance and threats of the type that you made," Hayes said.
Chang was also ordered to pay $116, 578 in restitution to the city's department of finance.
Outside the courtroom, his attorney Robert Reuland said Chang was "profoundly regretful" for threatening the prosecutor.
