An Alaska man has been arrested after allegedly threatening to torture and assassinate six Supreme Court justices and their relatives, the Justice Department announced Thursday.
Panos Anastasiou, 76, allegedly sent more than 465 messages through the Supreme Court’s public website — many of them violent, racist and homophobic, according to an indictment filed Wednesday.
He faces 22 federal charges: nine counts of making threats against a federal judge and 13 counts of making threats in interstate commerce.
The indictment did not name which of the nine Supreme Court justices were threatened. The court has a 6-3 split between conservatives and liberals.
“We allege that the defendant made repeated, heinous threats to murder and torture Supreme Court Justices and their families to retaliate against them for decisions he disagreed with,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement announcing the charges.
“Our justice system depends on the ability of judges to make their decisions based on the law, and not on fear. Our democracy depends on the ability of public officials to do their jobs without fearing for their lives or the safety of their families.”
A spokesperson for the Supreme Court did not respond to a request for comment.
The indictment does not contain accusations that Anastasiou attempted to carry out his threats.
Anastasiou’s arrest comes as threats against local and federal officials are surging. Garland told Congress in June that the Justice Department has established a threats task force and said his agency intends to aggressively investigate and prosecute these threats. In May, a Queens man pleaded guilty in D.C. to threatening to kill a congressional aide and making more than 12,000 harassing phone calls to members of Congress.
In 2022, a man with a gun and knife was arrested outside of Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh’s Maryland home. And in the past 10 weeks, there have been two apparent assassination attempts against former president Donald Trump, the 2024 Republican presidential nominee.
In the case announced Thursday, the Justice Department said Anastasiou began sending threatening messages in the spring of 2023 and continued sending them through at least July 2024. In recent months, the suspect seemed particularly angry about the Supreme Court’s decision to expand presidential immunity, ruling that presidents cannot be criminally prosecuted for acts that are considered official parts of their duties.
That decision was in response to Trump’s request to dismiss the D.C. federal election interference case brought against him by special counsel Jack Smith. Trump argued that presidential immunity should protect him from prosecution. The Supreme Court said former presidents may be prosecuted for unofficial acts, but the July 1 ruling ensured that the case would not go to trial before the 2024 election and could be delayed until 2026 or beyond.
“WE NEED MASS ASSASSINATIONS. If you’re corrupt you’re corrupt,” the suspect allegedly wrote in an expletive-filled message to the Supreme Court that included an apparent reference to “official and unofficial” acts. “The internet is abuzz with Americans clamoring for your ASSASSINATIONS.”
In a memo asking Magistrate Judge Kyle F. Reardon to keep Anastasiou detained until a potential trial or guilty plea, federal prosecutors wrote that the suspect had admitted to investigators that he sent the messages. They also said the email address used to send the messages contained the suspect’s name.
According to prosecutors, the suspect threatened to lynch the justices, encouraged other people to participate in violence against the Supreme Court and said that assassination is “patriotic.”
“I’m going to call and urge my fellow Vietnam veterans … to drive by the [Supreme Court Justice 2]’s house with their AR15’s,” one May message said.
“I’d like to see them TORTURED worse than Kim Jung Un [sic] would torture his own family,” read a June message referencing the North Korean dictator.
Prosecutors wrote that the defendant’s threats were “extreme and repeated. His racist, homophobic, vile rhetoric is meant to intimidate high level government officials from carrying out their official duties.”
Reardon, who oversaw Anastasiou’s initial appearance in court Wednesday, agreed to temporarily detain him.
Authorities also told the judge that Anastasiou has a history of threatening public officials and allegedly sent similar threatening messages to a state governor.
This is a developing story. It will be updated.
Mark Berman and Justin Jouvenal contributed to this report.