Man Who Threatened to Kill Election Officials Gets More Than 3 Years in Prison
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Version 0 of 1. A federal judge on Thursday sentenced a Colorado man who threatened to kill Democratic election officials in Colorado and Arizona and blamed his actions on exposure to far-right political rhetoric to more than three years in prison, officials said. The man, Teak Ty Brockbank, 46, pleaded guilty in October to one count of transmitting interstate threats, according to prosecutors. From September 2021 to July 2024, Mr. Brockbank, using two different social media accounts, posted a series of online threats against top election officials in Colorado and Arizona, a Colorado judge and federal agents, according to his plea agreement. In his online threats, Mr. Brockbank said that a Colorado election official and “many others” should “hang by the neck till they are Dead Dead Dead,” and he called for the execution of an election official in Arizona. Although they were unnamed in news releases about the case, The Associated Press reported that the two election officials targeted by Mr. Brockbank’s threats were the Colorado secretary of state, Jena Griswold, and Katie Hobbs, Arizona’s former secretary of state who is now the governor. According to The A.P., Judge S. Kato Crews of U.S. District Court said in sentencing Mr. Brockbank to 37 months in prison that the penalty “needed to be serious enough to deter others, particularly because threats against public officials are on the rise.” Tom Ward, a lawyer for Mr. Brockbank, said in a statement that his client was “ashamed” when looking back at his online posts and that he “takes full responsibility for his actions.” But he added that “it is important to remember that he was first a target of propaganda that relentlessly urged him to do exactly what he ended up doing.” |