Federal agents have arrested a man accused of threatening to kill FBI Director Kash Patel, and Patel wasn’t his only alleged target.
Anthony Daniel Palazzolo of Chesterfield Township, Michigan, is accused of vowing in one message to show up at an FBI office and use “deadly force” against government officials, The Daily Mail reported Saturday, citing a newly unsealed criminal complaint.
Palazzolo was arrested Friday and appeared that day in federal court in Detroit, where he faces a felony count of transmitting threatening interstate communications. The charge carries a maximum sentence of five years in federal prison.
According to the complaint, the case began with a Facebook message Palazzolo sent to an unnamed associate in early October. He allegedly told the person he had ordered a hit on them, then shifted to Patel, insulting the FBI director in crude terms and declaring him a dead man too.
Palazzolo also allegedly fired off a message to the Secret Service, the Supreme Court and a Texas court in which he threatened to sexually assault a government official.
When agents questioned him in October, Palazzolo admitted sending the messages, apologized and insisted he never meant to hurt anyone, according to an FBI agent’s statement cited by The Daily Mail.
The FBI said Palazzolo has a long criminal history spanning Michigan, Texas and Florida, including a 2018 charge for falsely reporting a terrorist threat and another for a bogus bomb threat.
He remains in custody ahead of a detention hearing set for Monday. His attorney declined to comment for The Daily Mail.
The case arrives as federal prosecutions over threats to public officials keep climbing. Data from the University of Nebraska Omaha’s National Counterterrorism Innovation, Technology, and Education Center and Chapman University cited by The Daily Mail show more than 850 such cases have been brought since 2013, with a record 133 last year and this year on pace to top it.
It isn’t the first threat tied to Patel. Earlier this year, federal agents arrested a 26-year-old Massachusetts man accused of emailing a violent threat to Patel’s girlfriend, Alex Wilkins.
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