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A Seward woman who served prison time for the botched castration and overdose death of her sixth husband was arrested Monday after she allegedly threatened to shoot a Westmoreland County judge.
Tammy L. Felbaum, 58, who is transgender, is being held in the Westmoreland County Prison on $100,000 bail in connection with an incident at the courthouse. County park police allege Felbaum claimed to have in her purse “guns and an Uzi … also a rocket launcher” when she went through metal detectors prior to a scheduled civil court hearing before Judge Chris Scherer, according to an affidavit.
She is charged with terroristic threats and disorderly conduct.
Felbaum was born a man — Thomas Wyda — in Uniontown but underwent a sex-change operation after self-castration. Fayette County court records show that Thomas Wyda was granted a name change to Tammy Lynn Wyda on Aug. 18, 1978.
She was convicted of involuntary manslaughter and related counts in December 2001 in the death of her husband, James Felbaum, 40, and was sentenced to 5 1⁄2 to 11 years in prison. She cut off her husband's testicles in a makeshift surgical laboratory in the couple's filthy, unheated mobile home in Marion Township, Butler County, according to trial testimony.
James Felbaum was at one time a handyman in Westmoreland County. Tammy Felbaum maintained her innocence during the trial.
Monday wasn't the first time Felbaum was accused of threatening a county official. She was sentenced in April 2008 to 21 to 60 months in jail followed by two years of probation on terroristic threats and aggravated harassment by a prisoner while she was incarcerated in her husband's death. She pleaded guilty to writing threatening letters to a Butler County assistant district attorney, two judges and others in October 2006.
In the Westmoreland case, county park police Officer Joshua Fox alleged that Felbaum shouted obscenities at him in the lobby area. Felbaum recognized Fox from a public drunkenness case he filed against her in November, according to an affidavit of probable cause.
Felbaum did not have an attorney listed in online court records. A Feb. 16 preliminary hearing is set.
The civil court hearing stems from a complaint filed on behalf of Seward/St. Clair Township Sanitary Authority, claiming that Tammy Felbaum has failed to connect her home to sanitary sewer lines as required by borough ordinances. She was given 15 days to apply for a state grant to assist with the costs.
Renatta Signorini is a Tribune-Review staff writer. Reach her at 724-837-5374 or rsignorini@tribweb.com.
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