A Michigan resident was charged Friday with threatening to murder FBI Director Kash Patel, marking the latest allegations of efforts to target the top Cabinet official and his affiliates.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Eastern District of Michigan announced it charged Anthony Daniel Palazzolo, 42, with making threats to kill Patel and one of the FBI director’s unnamed associates. Palazzolo was arrested Friday and appeared in court, where he was charged with one count of interstate communications involving threats, a felony punishable by up to five years in federal prison.
Palazzolo, who is from Chesterfield Township, stands accused of sending threatening messages over Facebook to the “associate.” Palazzo wrote he had “put a hit out” on the associate, and that Patel was a “dead mf,” prosecutors said.
“Following the FBI’s interview of Palazzolo, Palazzolo continued to harass a Detroit FBI agent via phone, threatening to come up to the office and ‘use deadly force against every single one of you government officials—FBI Secret Service will all be f*****g killed,’” the U.S. attorney’s office said in a press release.
A detention hearing has been set for Monday.
This is not the first time Patel has faced significant death threats.
In January, an Oklahoma man was charged with threatening to “publicly execute” Patel and country singer Alexis Wilkins, his then-girlfriend and now fiancee. Jacob Wray Hudson was indicted on three charges: threats to impede, intimidate, interfere, and retaliate against a federal law enforcement officer; and two counts of interstate communications with a threat to injure the person of another.
In March, authorities arrested a Massachusetts man for threatening Wilkins. Alden Welch Ruml sent an email saying he would be “happy” when her face is “canoed by an assault rifle,” according to prosecutors.
In the latest incident, the FBI questioned Palazzolo before he was arrested, and he admitted to making threats, though he apologized and said he “had no intent to harm anyone,” according to the criminal complaint.
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The Michigan resident allegedly proceeded to text threatening messages to one of the FBI agents and left voicemails asking that President Donald Trump be alerted that Palazzolo was planning to storm the agency’s Detroit office and “use deadly force against every single one of you government officials–FBI, Secret Service will all be f*****g killed.”
“We will rape you with tree branches on fire up you a– with nails in it down your throat too and up your p–sy and kill you torcher your cover up artists since you invovled with aggregated secual abuse on me mf,” Palazzolo allegedly wrote.