Jason Robert Burham Karimi, a Minnesota man, admitted to threatening to cause so much pain to the U.S. representative from California that Congress Will not be able to walk.
Karimi, 32, was arrested in January when he made a threatening phone call and claimed that the voicemail was meant to cause “political pain” rather than “physical pain.” Faced with a possible sentence of years in prison, Karimi changed his plea from not guilty to guilty on Thursday, and will be sentenced later for threatening the U.S. representative with interstate communications.
The 32-year-old congressman’s voicemail to the unnamed congressman told them to “be as scared as possible, scared, shhh-your pants.”
Karimi said in the voice mail: “We are here to find you. We want you to get up. We will make you miserable in every possible way.” “Your house has been destroyed. It’s unfortunate, but it’s still far away.” It’s far from enough, so we will end all the political power you have, so that you can’t walk on anything except a wheelchair.”
The voicemail left on January 11 was released after the riots in the Capitol led members of Congress to hide for a few days.It also happened a week after the Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy PelosiThe California home was destroyed. Pelosi’s office did not confirm or deny whether she was the receiver of the call; California has 53 congressional representatives.
Voice mail caught the attention of the U.S. Capitol police with FBI, Who arranged to meet Karimi.
Olivier Douliery/AFP/Getty Images
When FBI agent Daniel Jeffries contacted Karimi by phone and asked him if he knew the FBI wanted to talk to him, Karimi asked: “Is it about voice mail?” According to court records. He said he is an activist in the cannabis industry, mainly working in Iowa, but the goal is to lobby the US government.
After leaving the voicemail box, Karimi told Jeffries that he realized that he had made a mistake and called his friend that he had “broken up”. According to court records, Karimi was afraid that the Secret Service would “catch him.”
Although the voicemail contained threats of violence, Karimi told the FBI agents that he had no intention of causing representative physical harm. He said he used “political threats” as a strategy to get people’s attention and arouse a reaction.
Before leaving the voicemail on the phone in the representative office, Karimi said he told a lawyer that he would “dig out his son’s guts” and feed it to the lawyer’s son.
Weekly newspaper Shannon Elkins, Karimi’s lawyer, was contacted for comments, but no response was received in time.
Karimi is far from the first to threaten members of Congress. On Thursday, Sidhartha Kumar Mathur was sentenced to eight consecutive weekends and six months of family imprisonment for threatening to kill Rep. Andy Harris. Harris, a Republican from Maryland, supported Trump’s efforts to overthrow the election results. Mathur told him that if he tried to “take my vote”, he would blow up his office and “end” the legislation. By.
Mathur also directly threatened Harris’ family. Members of Congress said at the sentencing hearing on Thursday that although he expected to be threatened, it was “especially wrong” to pursue his family.
