An Alabama man has been sentenced to nearly two years in prison for threatening Georgia officials over former President Donald Trump's mug shot, prosecutors announced Tuesday.
59-year-old Arthur Ray Hanson II of Huntsville admitted to making violent and racially charged threats via voicemails left for Fulton County Sheriff Pat Labat and District Attorney Fani Willis when Trump was booked into jail in August 2023, NBC reported.
"If you think you gonna take a mugshot of my President Trump and it's gonna be okay, you gonna find out that...some bad [expletive]'s gonna happen to you," Hanson's voicemail to Fulton County Sheriff Pat Labat said, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office in Atlanta.
He also warned District Attorney Fani Willis to "be very afraid" if Trump was indicted. "Anytime you're alone, be looking over your shoulder," the voicemail to Willis said. "I would be very afraid if I were you because you can't be around people all the time that are going to protect you."
Hanson's threats were made before Trump was indicted as part of an ongoing case about attempts to overturn Georgia's 2020 election results. The voicemails, laden with racial slurs, referenced the Civil War, saying the situation "is why the South should have won."
Following his arrest, Hanson pleaded guilty in July to transmitting interstate threats. His attorneys argued Hanson, who is bipolar, was intoxicated at the time of the calls and has since taken steps to address his actions. However, court filings revealed Hanson continued making threats, even contacting a New Jersey Department of Homeland Security tip line to say U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas "should be hanged."
In addition to his prison sentence of one year and nine months, Hanson received three years of supervised release and was fined $7,500. The FBI condemned his actions, with Acting Special Agent Sean Burke calling threats against public officials a "threat against our democratic process."
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