Guilty of Threatening Democrats After Capitol Riot

[Nom De Plume]

New York Man Found Guilty of Threatening Democrats After Capitol Riot
Brendan Hunt said videos and social media posts calling for the slaughter of congressional Democrats were just jokes. Jurors were not convinced.

Mr. Hunt’s rhetoric, prosecutors said, had to be viewed in the context of the Capitol riot.

“Many watched the video clips from the Capitol in horror, but the defendant was inspired,” said Ian Richardson, an assistant U.S. attorney, in his closing statement. “He watched the events of Jan. 6, and he wanted more, more violence, more bloodshed.”

Mr. Hunt’s lawyers, Jan Rostal and Leticia Olivera, argued at trial that all of his statements were strongly worded political opinions, not specific and targeted threats.

People like Mr. Hunt have long posed a challenge for law enforcement officials, who sift through violent threats online to determine which ones are worthy of criminal prosecution and which ones are protected speech. Mr. Hunt was arrested on Jan. 19, the day before President Biden’s inauguration, a signal that F.B.I. agents did not want to wait and see what he might have done on that day.

On Wednesday’s verdict sheet, the jurors indicated that they found the video to be an illegal threat, but not the three other Facebook and Parler posts that prosecutors had also presented. The jury only had to conclude that one of the posts was a true threat to convict Mr. Hunt.

Mr. Hunt, a former clerical worker with the New York State court system and the son of a retired Queens judge, published the posts from his home in Ridgewood, Queens, about a 20-minute drive from Ms. Ocasio-Cortez’s district office. The government presented no evidence that Mr. Hunt owned or took any real-life steps to obtain weapons.

The jury reached its verdict after three hours of deliberation. After the verdict, Mr. Hunt’s lawyers said in a statement: “This prosecution is a slippery slope into a new war on speech.”

The climax of the trial was Mr. Hunt’s highly unusual decision to testify in his own defense — a risky maneuver that allowed him to share his side of the story but also meant prosecutors could cross-examine him about his anti-Semitic and white supremacist beliefs.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/28/nyre ... rdict.html

[sprintcyclist]

.......... Brendan Hunt said videos and social media posts calling for the slaughter of congressional Democrats were just jokes. Jurors were not convinced. ...................

yes, I don't think I would be convinced either.


And, what if others did not realise ..... 'it was a joke?"