Justice Dept. secures first guilty plea for threats to election workers

[essentialsaltes]

Justice Dept. secures first guilty plea for threats to election workers

A Nebraska man pleaded guilty Thursday on charges that he threatened an election official over social media last year, marking the first conviction for a Justice Department task force charged with protecting poll workers.

Federal authorities said Travis Ford, 42, of Lincoln, Neb., posted multiple hostile messages on an Instagram page associated with the official, who was not named in a Justice Department news release.

The task force has charged at least two other people with crimes.

 

[essentialsaltes]

Not clear if this is the same task force, but it is from DOJ...

‘Torches and Pitchforks. That’s Your Future, [ninnypoop]’: Iowa Man Claiming to Be 2020 Election Crime Victim Allegedly Targeted Arizona Officials with Threats of Hangings

The suspect, identified as 64-year-old Hiawatha, Iowa resident Mark A. Rissi, faces an indictment of two interstate threat counts and a count for a threatening interstate telephone call.

Rissi allegedly threatened Maricopa County Board of Supervisors official Clint Hickman, calling the Republican a “Commie” and promising a hanging.

“Hello Mr. [VICTIM], I am glad that you are standing up for democracy and want to place your hand on the Bible and say that the election was honest and fair. I really appreciate that,” said a voicemail threat left around Sept. 27, 2021. “When we come to lynch your stupid lying Commie [butt], you’ll remember that you lied on the [doggone] Bible, you piece of [poop]. You’re gonna die, you piece of [poop]. We’re going to hang you. We’re going to hang you.”

Notably, that threat was allegedly made three days after Cyber Ninjasreleased the results of its partisan audit, showing Joe Biden defeated Donald Trump — a fact Maricopa County was quick to note at the time.

Around Dec. 8, 2021, one year after the “Kraken” dismissal, the defendant allegedly left another threatening voicemail after calling an “official with the Office of the Arizona Attorney General.”

 

[DaisyDay]

Not clear if this is the same task force, but it is from DOJ...

‘Torches and Pitchforks. That’s Your Future, [ninnypoop]’: Iowa Man Claiming to Be 2020 Election Crime Victim Allegedly Targeted Arizona Officials with Threats of Hangings

The suspect, identified as 64-year-old Hiawatha, Iowa resident Mark A. Rissi, faces an indictment of two interstate threat counts and a count for a threatening interstate telephone call.

Rissi allegedly threatened Maricopa County Board of Supervisors official Clint Hickman, calling the Republican a “Commie” and promising a hanging.

“Hello Mr. [VICTIM], I am glad that you are standing up for democracy and want to place your hand on the Bible and say that the election was honest and fair. I really appreciate that,” said a voicemail threat left around Sept. 27, 2021. “When we come to lynch your stupid lying Commie [butt], you’ll remember that you lied on the [doggone] Bible, you piece of [poop]. You’re gonna die, you piece of [poop]. We’re going to hang you. We’re going to hang you.”

Notably, that threat was allegedly made three days after Cyber Ninjasreleased the results of its partisan audit, showing Joe Biden defeated Donald Trump — a fact Maricopa County was quick to note at the time.

Around Dec. 8, 2021, one year after the “Kraken” dismissal, the defendant allegedly left another threatening voicemail after calling an “official with the Office of the Arizona Attorney General.”

Those are scary people, stupid and delusional, but proactive!

 

[essentialsaltes]

‘Torches and Pitchforks. That’s Your Future, [ninnypoop]’: Iowa Man Claiming to Be 2020 Election Crime Victim Allegedly Targeted Arizona Officials with Threats of Hangings
Rissi allegedly threatened Maricopa County Board of Supervisors official Clint Hickman, calling the Republican a “Commie” and promising a hanging.

“When we come to lynch your stupid lying Commie [butt], you’ll remember that you lied on the [doggone] Bible, you piece of [poop]. You’re gonna die, you piece of [poop]. We’re going to hang you. We’re going to hang you.”

In court, Trump supporter faces election official he violently threatened​

Clint Hickman’s simple act [to ratify the election] — which was required by law and his oath as chairman of the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors — resulted in hundreds of mostly anonymous threats. Hickman, a 58-year-old Republican who has served as a supervisor for a decade, says he is so tired of election denialism and hostility toward rank-and-file staff that he has not yet decided if he will run for reelection next year.

On Monday, he came face-to-face with one of his harassers.

Mark Rissi, a 65-year-old from Iowa who has worked in customer service in recent years, walked into the courtroom using a cane. He slowly passed Hickman as he made his way to the defendant’s table. In April, he pleaded guilty to sending threatening communications to Hickman and the state’s former attorney general, Mark Brnovich, also a Republican.

Rissi’s attorney, Anthony James Knowles, told the judge that at the time of the calls, there was “a lot of misinformation being promulgated” by Rissi’s family and the media.

[Judge] Lanza issued a sentence of 30 months — six months more than requested by the Justice Department, drawing audible gasps in the courtroom.

The judge said he hoped the punishment would deter those dissatisfied by future election outcomes, showing that there is an “unambiguous and serious line” that cannot be crossed when contacting public officials.

 

[essentialsaltes]

In court, Trump supporter faces election official he violently threatened​

Mark Rissi, a 65-year-old from Iowa who has worked in customer service in recent years, walked into the courtroom using a cane. He slowly passed Hickman as he made his way to the defendant’s table. In April, he pleaded guilty to sending threatening communications to Hickman and the state’s former attorney general, Mark Brnovich, also a Republican.

Rissi is one of four men recently charged or convicted for threatening Arizona election officials since the 2020 election.

Earlier this month, a Massachusetts man pleaded guilty in federal court to sending a bomb threat to Gov. Katie Hobbs in February 2021, when she was Arizona’s secretary of state. In another case, a Texas man earlier this month was sentenced to three and a half years in federal prison after threatening Richer and a county attorney, Tom Liddy, on social media. And In June, a Phoenix man was charged by the Arizona Attorney General’s Office with sending a threatening email in November 2022 to Supervisor Bill Gates.

Gates has said the threats against him have contributed to his post-traumatic stress disorder, Richer has said he has been defamed and it has impacted his family, and countless election officials have resigned, citing harassment.

 

[essentialsaltes]

Texas man sentenced 2 years in prison for threatening Georgia election workers after 2020 election​

Prosecutors say [Chad Christopher] Stark, who is from suburban Austin, urged Georgia residents on social media to “militia up” and called for shooting several unnamed officials and judges.

 

[essentialsaltes]

In court, Trump supporter faces election official he violently threatened​

Clint Hickman’s simple act [to ratify the election] — which was required by law and his oath as chairman of the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors — resulted in hundreds of mostly anonymous threats. Hickman says he is so tired of election denialism and hostility toward rank-and-file staff that he has not yet decided if he will run for reelection next year.

He won't

Ariz. Republican who stood up to Trump after 2020 won’t seek reelection​

Clint Hickman, a member of the Maricopa Board of Supervisors, faced threats and conspiracy theories after certifying Joe Biden’s win in Arizona’s most populous county​

Hickman is the second Republican in eight months who’d been critical of his own party’s handling of Trump and election denialism to decide against pursuing another term to sit on the five-member county board. It reflects the continued command of the Arizona party by election-denying Republicans, led by Trump and his allies and senate candidate Kari Lake. In June, Supervisor Bill Gates, who was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder because of sustained attacks on him and his family after the 2020 election, said he would not run.

 

[essentialsaltes]

Man pleads guilty to threatening Michigan official over 2020 election​

A week after Joe Biden was elected president, Andrew Nickels of Carmel, Ind., left a voice mail for Rochester Hills, Mich., Clerk Tina Barton in which he said she deserved a “throat to the knife” because she had “frauded out America of a real election, ” the U.S. attorney’s office for the Eastern District of Michigan said in a news release.

Nickels, 37, pleaded guilty to one count of making a threatening interstate communication, according to the news release, and he faces up to five years in prison. He is scheduled to be sentenced July 9.

In a post on X, formerly Twitter, Barton called the plea “a win for election officials all over the country.” She added that the threats she received had “permanently impacted me and my family’s lives.”

 

[essentialsaltes]

Ohio man gets 2.5 years in prison for death threats made in 2022 to Arizona’s top election official​

Joshua Russell of Bucyrus, Ohio, had pleaded guilty in late August to a federal charge of making an interstate threat against Hobbs, a Democrat who, as secretary of state, was Arizona’s chief elections officer in 2022 and now serves as the state’s governor.

 

[essentialsaltes]

The DOJ is investigating dozens of threats against election workers​

The Department of Justice is investigating dozens of threats made to election workers, federal officials said Monday, and has charged 20 individuals so far.

Thirteen of the 20 charged individuals have been convicted. Of the ten who have been sentenced already, seven have received prison sentences of more than 18 months, “signaling how serious federal courts are taking this conduct,” said John Keller, a DOJ official who leads day-to-day operations of the agency’s Election Threats Task Force.

Most threats reviewed by the FBI are not criminally actionable, officials said Monday, though they noted that every single reported communication is reviewed. To reach the level of a crime, Restaino said, a communication must include a “serious expression that a speaker means to commit an act of violence.”