An Arizona man who left a message telling House Speaker Nancy Pelosi “I’m coming to kill you," was convicted Thursday, federal prosecutors said.
Steven Arthur Martis, 77, of Bullhead City, was convicted on one count of communicating an interstate threat, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Arizona said Friday.
Martis left the voicemails with Pelosi's office on Jan. 17. One contained the threat to kill Pelosi, D-Calif., and the other said “you’re dead,” according to a criminal complaint.
About a year earlier, the FBI had interviewed Martis about a different message to another member of Congress and warned him that conduct is against the law, an affidavit filed in the case says.
Online court records show that the jury was deadlocked on two other counts, a mistrial was declared and that a new trial date was set for those charges in January.
Martis' attorney, Dave Eisenberg, said Martis will be retried on those counts after the jury did not come to a unanimous verdict.
Sentencing is set for January. The maximum sentence on the count is five years in prison.
Eisenberg said he will advocate that Martis, who has been held since his February arrest, is sentenced to time served.
In a different case involving threats to elected officials, a 52-year-old Laramie, Wyoming, man was sentenced to 1 1/2 years in prison for making threats to two Republican members of Congress and a state senator, prosecutors said Tuesday.
Christopher Kent Podlesnik pleaded guilty in August to four counts of transmitting threats in interstate commerce and was sentenced to 18 months in prison and a $10,000 fine Nov. 5, according to court records.
He pleaded guilty to counts that he made threats to U.S. Sen. Cynthia Lummis, R-Wyoming; U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Florida; and Wyoming State Sen. Anthony Bouchard, also a Republican, according to court documents.
