Highlights
- Sylvestre jailed for three years and four months at the High Court in Glasgow
- Sent threatening and offensive emails to Nadia El-Nakla, wife of former first minister Humza Yousaf
- Cleared of similar charges involving ex-police chief Iain Livingstone and Jeremy Corbyn
- Indefinite non-harassment order granted to protect El-Nakla
A FORMER New York lawyer has been jailed for more than three years for sending threatening letters to Scotland's lord advocate and abusive emails to the wife of former first minister Humza Yousaf.
Matthew Sylvestre, 61, sent notes to the home of lord advocate Dorothy Bain KC warning that "something nasty" could happen to her relatives if he did not get the keys to his flat and his wallet back.
He also sent emails to Nadia El-Nakla, a Dundee councillor and Yousaf's wife, using offensive and threatening language. The messages left her fearing for her safety and her family's safety.
Sylvestre was jailed for three years and four months at the High Court in Glasgow. He was cleared of separate charges of acting in a threatening way towards former Police Scotland chief constable Iain Livingstone and former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn.
He was also convicted last month of assaulting Sergeant Mark Ross — then a detective constable — causing him severe injury during his arrest in Perth.
Judge Lord Colbeck told Sylvestre: "Your culpability was significant with the two messages which you sent the then lord advocate, which were sinister and implied a threat to her son and sisters. You are clearly an educated man, but the manner you choose to engage with high-profile public figures is unacceptable, as was the assault on a police officer."
He added: "Sending offensive messages while drinking is not an excuse, it is an aggravator. The messages you sent to the then lord advocate amount to an attack on the administration of justice."
Sylvestre will be supervised for 12 months after his release "to protect the public from serious harm." An indefinite non-harassment order was granted barring him from contacting El-Nakla.
Two letters to Bain
The court heard that an envelope addressed to Bain was delivered to her home on April 23, 2024. Inside was a handwritten note reading: "Give me the keys of my flat and my wallet or something nasty will happen to Janie down south England and to your sisters."
Advocate depute Adrian Stalker told jurors, "Dorothy Bain believed this to be a reference to her son Jamie and her sisters. The note made her feel alarmed due to the specific reference to her son, the fact that her son was then living in the south of England, the reference to her having sisters and that the envelope accurately stated her home address. None of these matters were public knowledge."
A second envelope arrived days later. Bain passed it to police unopened. It contained a further note: "keys flAT wallet FLAT COMPO RELEASE OR CHAINSAW."
Sylvestre's fingerprints were found on both envelopes. He denied writing to Bain and claimed paper and envelopes had been stolen from him while he was in prison.
The emails to El-Nakla
El-Nakla received emails from Sylvestre between October 2023 and March 2024, sent from an address in Cullen, Moray, and elsewhere. One mentioned her pregnancy, stating, "God willing nothing will go wrong."
In another, he suggested she invite drug users to her family home in Broughty Ferry, saying she "could serve them lunch while talking about Islam" while they "shoot up heroin in the living room." El-Nakla told the court she was concerned he had identified her home address.
Sylvestre told the court of the remark, "That was meant to be funny. Maybe not funny. I'm sorry." He said he had written to El-Nakla out of concern over the conflict in Gaza, though his messages also touched on the Scottish government's planned drug consumption rooms.
El-Nakla was the only one of Sylvestre's targets to give evidence at the trial, held at the High Court in Edinburgh.
Previous conviction and background
The jury heard that Sylvestre was jailed for eight years in 2004 for a serious assault in Moray, in which he shot a man in the back of the head, beat him with the butt of a gun and stabbed him with a sword. He spent time afterwards at the State Hospital, Carstairs, the high-security psychiatric facility.
In May 2024, prison officers searching a cell at Perth jail occupied by Sylvestre found a letter he had written to first minister John Swinney, in which he claimed to be the victim of a "personal vendetta."
Defence counsel Brian McConnachie KC told the sentencing hearing, "There is nothing I can say about the circumstances of the offence. Having heard him give his evidence, there is a degree of eccentricity in relation to him."
