Trial for man accused of threatening to kill SLO County DA delayed again. Why?
The identity of the SLO County public official whose life was allegedly threatened in a revenge plot by a Missouri man was confirmed as the suspect’s federal trial was delayed again.
District Attorney Dan Dow was the subject of several “true threats” from David William Platek, 41, who allegedly claimed he would bomb a SLO County school and murder Dow in December 2024, according to court records.
Dow was anonymized in court records as an unnamed public official until recently.
Platek, from Springfield, Missouri, was arrested in January 2025 and charged by the U.S. Department of Justice with interstate criminal threats, court records show. He was indicted first in California, then later in Missouri, where he now awaits trial.
Initially scheduled for Oct. 20 in Missouri, Platek’s trial date has been delayed multiple times, most recently until July 6 to allow more time for a mental health evaluation, court records show.
The trial is pending a decision on a motion to dismiss the case from Platek’s defense, which argues the “parallel proceedings” in California and Missouri have violated his rights and amount to “prosecutorial harassment.”
Platek detailed his plot to assassinate Dow and then set off “a large explosion killing 400, mostly children in San Luis Obispo,” in texts to a friend in December 2024, according to his indictment. He pleaded not guilty in February 2025.
Platek had also reposted one of Dow’s posts on X that referenced the Second Amendment on Dec. 11, 2024, at which time he had changed his profile picture to the Mario Brother’s character Luigi — an alleged reference to Luigi Mangione, the man accused of killing United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson — court records show.
Dow also confirmed to The Tribune on Tuesday that “the threats were directed towards me and my family.”
They included “a specific threat to kill my children in front of me and to also kill their classmates in front of them,” Dow said.
The SLO County District Attorney’s Office had previously charged Platek with felony identity theft in 2019 for posing as a SLO County political activist on Facebook. Those charges were later dismissed.
Trial is delayed again as defense argues to dismiss case
Platek’s defense filed a motion to dismiss the case with prejudice on Dec. 6, arguing the case was already dismissed with prejudice before in California.
Dismissal with prejudice — as opposed to without prejudice — means that the same claim cannot be refiled again in that court, according to Cornell Law School’s Legal Information Institute.
Platek was originally indicted on one count in California on Jan. 28, 2025, court records show.
However, the case was refiled in Missouri with three additional counts of transmitting threats to injure before the indictment was dismissed with prejudice in California, an act that the California court found constituted “prosecutorial harassment, gamesmanship, forum shopping and a disregard for Defendant David Platek’s speedy trial rights,” due to the similarity of the cases, the defense’s motion to dismiss argued.
As defined by the Legal Information Institute, “forum shopping” is the practice of pursuing a claim in the most favorable court, while “gamesmanship” is the aggressive and strategic use of rules that violate some sense of decorum or culture yet remain within the formal rules of engagement, according to Georgetown’s American Criminal Law Review.
The prosecution argued the California and Missouri indictments were separate and distinct cases, with the first carrying only one charge while the latter carried four, and therefore were outside the prohibitions of dismissal with prejudice.
The defense’s motion also argued the refiling violated Platek’s right to a trial within 70 days of indictment in California — which would’ve been early April 2025.
“Due to the government’s refiling, this action will have been pending for over a year at the time of trial, despite the fact that the parties and the court were ready for trial over six months ago,” the motion said.
Court records show the defense requested the first three continuances of the trial to a later date in September, October and December. The government requested the most recent continuances granted in January and February.
Now, despite the defense’s current objection to rescheduling the trial any later than April 20, Platek’s trial will not begin anytime soon.
