A federal judge on Tuesday sentenced a man to 13 months in prison on charges connected to a threat to kill a congressional staff member and more than 12,000 phone calls to dozens of congressional offices, both in Washington and home districts across the country.
The defendant, Ade Salim Lilly, pleaded guilty in May to two federal counts — interstate communications with a threat to kidnap or injure, and repeated telephone calls — and plea documents said Lilly at times used vulgar and harassing language.
In one incident, Lilly reportedly told a congressional staffer: “I will kill you, I am going to run you over, I will kill you with a bomb or grenade.” An indictment also accused Lilly of targeting a congressional office with phone calls more than 500 times over the course of about two days in February 2023.
During the sentencing hearing, Judge Timothy Kelly of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia pointed to an elevated threat landscape facing members of Congress in recent years.
Capitol Police and other law enforcement agencies are being forced to devote resources to protecting members of Congress and guarding against the threats, Kelly said. And he mentioned a 2022 attack against the husband of then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the July assassination attempt of former President Donald Trump.
“So we’ve got a real problem on our hands here about how our public servants go about their jobs, and Lord we haven’t even gotten to the poor staffers who work for these people,” Kelly said.
Kelly told Lilly that call takers in Congress are not decision-makers, and public officials and their staff need to be able to do their jobs without threats and harassment.
Plus, if member offices are being harassed over the phone, it can prevent constituents from getting through to their representative, he said.
A defense attorney for Lilly identified the person who received the death threat as a staffer for Res. Cmmsr. Jenniffer González-Colón, R-P.R.
Kelly also told Lilly that he had been warned about his conduct by Capitol Police and by staff themselves.
“This was not a one-time mistake. This was many, many mistakes,” Kelly told the defendant.
A sentencing memorandum prepared by the Justice Department said Lilly’s offenses spanned the course of more than a year and a half, with Lilly executing “a campaign of pervasive harassing communications against members of Congress.”
“The defendant’s threat against a staff member of an elected official is a striking example of disrespect and contempt toward legislative authority and requires an appropriate sanction as punishment, not only to protect the public figures who run for election, but also for the private figures who are employees of the institution,” the memorandum read.
Prosecutors asked the court for a sentence of a year and a half, while Lilly’s defense on Tuesday pushed for a sentence of time served, noting he’s been in custody for more than nine months and has no prior convictions.
Lilly told Kelly in court Tuesday that he accepted sole responsibility for his conduct.
“I have no history of violence, no intentions of violence,” he said.
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