By Lydia Wheeler Ben Penn Senior Reporters
A Virginia man has been charged with threatening online to kill Vice President Kamala Harris, among other public officials including President Joe Biden and FBI Director Christopher Wray.
Frank Lucio Carillo was arrested for intentionally threatening to take the life and inflict bodily harm to Harris, who is now the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, according to Aug. 2 court filings in the US District Court for the Western District of Virginia. He is due to appear in court Monday morning for an initial hearing.
“Kamala Harris needs to be put on fire alive I will do it personally if no one else does it I want her to suffer a slow agonizing death,” Carillo said in one of multiple posts the FBI reviewed from the social media platform, GETTR. Carillo made the comments on July 27, after it became apparent that Harris would have the support needed to replace Biden on the 2024 Democratic ticket.
FBI agents seized a rifle and a handgun from Carillo’s Winchester, Virginia, residence. During the search of his home, Carillo told an FBI officer, if this is “about the online stuff. I posted it,” according to an FBI agent’s affidavit supporting his arrest.
The threats come weeks after an assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania.
The investigation started when the FBI’s Phoenix office was informed of potential threats Carillo also made against a Maricopa County official.
To contact the reporter on this story: Lydia Wheeler in Washington at lwheeler@bloomberglaw.com; Ben Penn in Washington at bpenn@bloomberglaw.com
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Seth Stern at sstern@bloomberglaw.com
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