Connecticut Man Charged With Threatening to Kill Adam Schiff

The man, Robert M. Phelps, 62, of Torrington, Connecticut, used a meeting request form on Schiff’s congressional website to send the expletive-laden threats, which were made Nov. 12, the eve of the first public impeachment hearing, according to a criminal complaint.

Phelps was taken into custody Friday and made a brief appearance the same day in U.S. District Court in Connecticut. He was at least the third person to be charged with threatening Schiff, a former federal prosecutor who became the face of the impeachment case against Trump. Several other Democratic lawmakers have faced similar death threats.

Prosecutors said that Phelps wrote, “I want to come and see you so I can spit in your face and I want to kill you with my bare hands and smash your sick little round fat lying face in.”

In the space where people can list their time preferences for a meeting, Phelps wrote, “Measure your coffin day,” according to the criminal complaint.

Allison Near, a public defender for Phelps, declined to comment Monday. Phelps did not respond to an email request for comment.

A spokesman for Schiff, the House Intelligence Committee chairman, declined to comment Monday.

The charges against Phelps were announced by John H. Durham, the U.S. attorney for Connecticut. Last year, Attorney General William Barr appointed Durham to lead an investigation into the origins of the FBI’s Russia probe.

Phelps was charged with threatening to murder a U.S. official with intent to impede, intimidate or interfere with their performance of official duties or with the intent to retaliate against the official for performing official duties. It is also a crime to make a death threat in an interstate communication.

When investigators confronted Phelps at his home in December, he admitted to sending the death threats to Schiff, prosecutors said.

“Phelps stated he had a right to contact members of Congress and defend ‘his president,’ ” Daniel Heether, an FBI special agent, wrote in the criminal complaint.

Phelps then asked if Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, a vocal critic of Trump, had prompted law enforcement officers to pursue the matter, according to the criminal complaint.

“Phelps asked investigators if they were in his home because of Senator Blumenthal and that the Democrats that are involved in the impeachment proceedings against the president should be arrested,” Heether wrote.

In December, the House impeached Trump on charges that he abused power and obstructed Congress, stemming from the president’s attempts to get Ukraine to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden and his son.

The Senate acquitted Trump in February.

Phelps has prior convictions for third-degree assault and second-degree breach of peace, according to court documents.

He was released on a $25,000 bond and is scheduled to return to court June 3.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times .