Today's Edition
The New York Times News Service
A Virginia man has been charged with posting repeated death threats against Vice President Kamala Harris on social media, authorities said Monday.
The man, Frank Lucio Carillo, of Winchester, Virginia, was arrested on Friday and appeared in U.S. District Court in Roanoke, Virginia, on Monday to face a charge of making threats against the vice president of the United States. The felony charge carries a maximum sentence of up to five years in prison.
The arrest came after the FBI discovered nearly 20 threats against Harris from an account linked to Carillo on the social media site GETTR, according to filings in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Virginia.
In an affidavit supporting Carillo’s arrest, the FBI cited "4,359 posts/replies made by ‘joemadarats1’ targeting various public officials” over the past year, including Harris, President Joe Biden, FBI Director Christopher Wray and Stephen Richer, the recorder of Maricopa County in Arizona who became known for rejecting claims that the 2020 presidential election had been stolen from former President Donald Trump.
The threats against the vice president were made days after Harris replaced Biden to become the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, according to court records.
In a statement on Monday, Christopher R. Kavanaugh, the U.S. attorney for the Western District of Virginia, said: "Open political discourse is a cornerstone of our American experience. We can disagree. We can argue, and we can debate. However, when those disagreements cross the line to threats of violence, law enforcement must step in.”
