A judge on Friday restructured the sentence he imposed last month on a Butler man convicted of threatening a district judge and another district court office’s staff in June 2023.

Senior Common Pleas Judge Kenneth Valasek restructured the sentence given to Mattew P. Dec., 56, after granting a post sentence motion that challenged the amount of credit for time served given at his original sentencing July 28.

In the original sentence, Dec was given credit for 311 days, including 213 days served on house arrest with electronic monitoring and 98 days in the county jail. He was sentenced to concurrently serve four terms of 311 days to two years less one day in the county prison on four counts of terroristic threats followed by 24 months of probation for a fifth count and pay fines totaling $500. He ordered no additional penalty for four harassment charges.

In his July 31 post-sentence motion, assistant district attorney Robert Zanella argued that under state law, Dec was not entitled to the 213 days of credit he received for serving time on house arrest with electronic monitoring, but is entitled to credit for the 98 days he served in county prison.

Valasek granted the motion Aug. 7 and resentenced Dec on Friday to concurrently serve two terms of 45 to 98 days in prison for two counts of terroristic threats. He was given credit for having served 98 days. For the third count of terroristic threats, he was sentenced to 213 days of probation with house arrest and electronic monitoring, but was given credit for having already served that term. For the fourth and fifth counts of terroristic threats, he was sentenced to concurrently serve two terms of 24 months of probation. The sentence included $100 fines for each of five the terroristic threats charges and 100 hours of community service. He was given no additional penalties for the four harassment charges.

After the sentencing hearing, Dec denied making threats, but said he respects Valasek saying he “used wisdom” in restructuring the sentence.

According to state police, Dec called Butler Township District Judge Kevin O’Donnell’s office June 6, 2023, and talked to a staff member about filing a lawsuit, but was told he had to file it at Chicora District Judge Lewis Stoughton’s office. He was told Stoughton would have to recuse himself for the suit to be transferred to another district court.

Dec then threatened to hire people from Pittsburgh to “come up and burn Judge Stoughton’s place down” and repeated the threat numerous times during the phone call, police said.