By MARGERY A. BECK, Associated Press
LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — A Nebraska man was sentenced Thursday to 18 months in prison for online threats he made against Colorado’s top elections official, in one in every of the primary cases brought by a federal task force dedicated to protecting elections staff nationwide from rising threats.
The sentence got here the identical day an Iowa man was arrested for allegedly leaving voicemail threats for an area Arizona official and the Arizona’s Attorney General’s Office.
In Nebraska, Travis Ford was sentenced in U.S. District Court in Lincoln, where he lives. He pleaded guilty earlier this 12 months to sending threats to Secretary of State Jena Griswold on social media. It was the primary guilty plea obtained by the U.S. Justice Department’s Election Threats Task Force, which was launched last 12 months after the 2020 presidential election, citing the potential effect on democracy of threats against election officials and staff.
A national advocate for elections security, Griswold has received 1000’s of threats over her insistence the 2020 election was secure despite false claims by former President Donald Trump that it was stolen.
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Ford must report Jan. 11 to a federal prison that will probably be named later. After prison he must complete a 12 months of supervision.
Ford addressed the court Thursday, saying he takes responsibility for his actions and understands they were flawed.
“I’m ashamed, and I’m embarrassed for not only putting myself but my family through this,” he said.
Federal prosecutors had sought a two-year prison sentence, saying “there may be a real need for general deterrence here.” Investigators discovered Ford made the threats quite a few times last 12 months over an Instagram account began by his brother to which Ford gained access. Prosecutors also said Ford made death threats against President Joe Biden and “a CEO of a serious technology company.” Ford was not charged for those allegations.
His attorney, Jason Troia of Omaha, had sought a shorter sentence. He said Ford had a positive employment record, the threats were short lived and out of character and that Ford made the threats under duress because COVID-19 vaccine mandates fueled his antigovernment sentiment.
U.S. District Judge John M. Gerrard rejected those pleas, sayng there’s “nothing special” about being steadily employed and countering that Ford made 18 serious threats over a three-month span.
As for Ford’s threats being coerced by vaccine mandates, “This argument is complete nonsense,” Gerrard said.
Prosecutors said Ford sent Griswold a series of threatening messages over Instagram in August. One read, “Do you’re feeling protected? You shouldn’t.” One other read: “Your security detail is much too thin and incompetent to guard you. This world is unpredictable as of late … anything can occur to anyone.”
Federal officials said there was little to clarify why Ford would make such threats, noting he has a loving relationship along with his family and fiancé, is in good health and earned a great living.
“Although the federal government doesn’t currently have reason to consider that defendant will commit similar offenses here in the long run, threats to elections staff across the country are an ongoing and really major problem,” prosecutors said.
They added that one recent survey found one in six election officials have experienced threats due to their job, and 77 percent said they feel the amount of threats has increased lately.
The judge said he reduced Ford’s sentence to 18 months only because he has no criminal history and his remorse appears real.
“A lot of these threats aren’t throughout the mainstream of public discourse,” Gerrard said. “They’re not even near normal, and I’ll do nothing to normalize it.”
Also on Thursday, the Justice Department announced the arrest of Mark Rissi, 64, of Hiawatha, Iowa, on suspicion of leaving a voicemail in September 2021 for Republican Maricopa County Supervisor Clint Hickman. Prosecutors say Rissi’s message threatening to lynch Hickman.
“This wasn’t a prank call. This wasn’t protected speech. This was a serious threat to me and my family,” Hickman said in a press release Thursday, which also called out other Arizona leaders for his or her silence as he and election officials have endured two years of threats.
Prosecutors say Rissi left a voicemail weeks later with the Arizona Attorney General claiming the 2020 general election in Arizona was fraudulent and telling prosecutors, “Do your job … otherwise you will hang with those (expletive) ultimately. We’ll see to it. Torches and pitchforks. That’s your future.”
Election officials in Arizona and other battleground states have been subjected to threats and intimidation by some Trump supporters because the 2020 election.
Rissi — who was to seem in an Iowa federal court Thursday — faces as much as five years in prison if convicted of every of two counts of creating a threatening interstate communication and as much as two years for a single count of creating a threatening telephone call.
Rissi’s case didn’t appear in online court records Thursday, and it wasn’t clear whether he yet had an attorney.
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