A 73-year-old former Stanislaus County court interpreter accused of threatening members of the local legal community was ordered to stand trial Wednesday after detectives described how threatening emails, fake online identities and cellphone records led them to his Ceres home and a cache of 81 firearms.
Francis Joseph Haidar was held to answer by Judge Robert B. Westbrook following a preliminary hearing in Stanislaus County Superior Court, where prosecutors presented testimony from a Modesto attorney, a psychologist and two Modesto police detectives.
The hearing provided the most detailed account yet of the investigation that led to Haidar’s Aug. 24 arrest and expanded on allegations first raised when a judge ordered him held without bail last month…