A Nevada man has been charged with sending death threats to judges overseeing Donald Trump's trials, as well state officials and a member of Congress.
A magistrate judge ordered Spencer Gear, 32, to be held in custody until his trial after he targeted five federal judges in Washington, D.C., in addition to U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan and New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan, with voicemail messages accusing them of corruption and threatening to execute them, reported Politico.
“This defendant is a ticking time bomb,” said Assistant U.S. Attorney Jacob Operskalski at a bail hearing Tuesday in Las Vegas. “His words are reminiscent of the Holocaust as he dehumanizes his victims, calling them filth, calling them trash.”
Operskalski did not identify any of Gear's targets by name in court, but the 22-count indictment refers to them by their initials, and a person familiar with the case told Politico the five district court judges in Washington that he threatened were Beryl Howell, Reggie Walton, Christopher Cooper, Jia Cobb and Colleen Kollar-Kotelly – all of whom have handled criminal cases related to the Jan. 6 insurrection.
Kaplan oversaw two civil trials against Trump that found him liable for sexual abuse and defamation, while Merchan presided over Trump’s criminal hush money trial in Manhattan that resulted in the former president's conviction on 34 felony counts. Prosecutors played a recording of a message Gear is accused of sending to Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg a few days after that trial ended.
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“The Constitution will reign supreme when we start executing filth like you," the caller says in the June 3 recording. "You are a dead man ... [you are spending] hundreds of millions of dollars to politically persecute the president of the United States.”
Prosecutors cited the apparent assassination attempt earlier this month against Trump to argue that Gear, whom they called a "domestic terrorist," should remain in jail until his trial, which is currently set for Sept. 24.
“We’re … less than two weeks out from an assassination attempt on the Republican candidate for president,” Operskalski said during the hearing. “Although this is a far-right extremist, it’s an example of what could happen if we let a person like Mr. Gear out of custody when he has told us exactly what he is going to do. We should take him at his word.”
