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SALT LAKE CITY — A man who admitted to holding a hostage at knife point at the FBI's Salt Lake headquarters was sentenced Monday to three years of probation.
Robert Joseph Hibbard, 43, pleaded guilty but mentally ill in August to kidnapping, a second-degree felony. The charge was reduced from a first-degree felony as part of a plea bargain that acknowledged Hibbard was mentally ill at the time of the crime.
Prosecutors said Hibbard's actions were tied to the death of his ex-wife a year before the kidnapping.
Rashell Langford, 33, died Sept. 5, 2011, after she and her husband, Shawn Langford, apparently made a suicide pact. The Bluffdale couple was high on bath salts and under the influence of alcohol when Shawn Langford handed his wife a rifle and she shot and killed herself.
The blast apparently startled the man to the point that he didn't go through with his intended suicide. But Hibbard believed his ex-wife's new husband should have been charged with murder.
When Hibbard went to the building where the FBI's offices were at 257 E. 200 South on Sept. 12, 2012, he was asked to leave by a man who said Hibbard seemed agitated. Hibbard grabbed the man from behind, placed an object to the man's back and told him it was a gun, police said. The object was later found to be a knife.
Hibbard then placed the man in a headlock, told him he needed a forensic psychiatrist and ordered him to take him to the 12th floor, where the FBI offices were located. Once they arrived, he let the man go, handed him the knife and was taken into custody by an FBI agent.
Third District Judge Robin Reese also ordered Hibbard to pay a $1,500 fine. As part of his probation, he is prohibited from entering the federal building, must participate in counseling or treatment programs and must maintain a stable residence.
