Teak Brockbank, of Cortez, Colo., has been arrested and charged with threatening election officials, judges and law enforcement online. Photo courtesy of FBI/Affidavit
Aug. 27 (UPI) — A 45-year-old Colorado man has been arrested and charged with making threats online against election workers, a state judge and federal law enforcement agents.
Teak Brockbank, of Cortez, Colo., made his initial court appearance Monday after being arrested by the FBI in his hometown on Friday.
He has been charged with transmitting interstate threats and faces up to five years’ imprisonment if convicted.
“We allege that the defendant made detailed death threats against election officials, judges and law enforcement officers,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said Monday in a statement.
Federal prosecutors alleged that Brockbank threatened the lives of multiple public servants on the conservative social media platforms Rumble and Gab between September 2021 and August the following year. Excerpts of his alleged posts included in a redacted FBI affidavit call for the deaths of officials.
One post made on Sept. 22, 2021, calls for the execution of a Colorado election official Brockbank allegedly accused of destroying election data. In the post, he allegedly called the unidentified woman a “crazed liberal” who “has to Hang by the neck till she is Dead Dead Dead.”
“There will be accountability for these peoples actions in Communist Colorado and it won’t be judges and it won’t be … cops that bring it!!!! It will be Me,” the post states.
Another published on Aug. 4, 2022, calls for the execution of unidentified Colorado and Arizona election officials.
“Once those people start getting put to death then the rest will melt like snowflakes and turn on each other,” an excerpt of the post states. “This is the only way. So those of us that have the stomach for what has to be done should prepare our minds for what we all Are going to do.”
And on Oct. 2, 2021, he allegedly posted about threatening to shoot a Colorado state judge.
“I could pick up my rifle and I could go put a bullet in this Mans head and send him to explain himself to our Creator right now,” he allegedly wrote. “I would be Justified!!!”
Search warrants that produced Brockbank’s cellphone communications show that he allegedly texted his stepfather on Dec. 20, 2023, concerning the removal of former President Donald Trump from the ballot in Colorado, a decision that was later overturned by the Supreme Court.
In the text message included in the affidavit, Brockbank allegedly said that the judges behind the Colorado decision “have been moved to the front of my list.”
Information retrieved from his phone included pictures of Brockbank allegedly posing with guns, which the federal government states is illegal as Brockbank is barred from possessing any firearm over a 2002 conviction for attempted theft by receipt of stolen property.
In text with his stepfather that was excerpted in the affidavit, Brockbank allegedly said, “I do not go anywhere without a firearm.”
“As alleged, Teak Brockbank threatened the lives of multiple public servants on social media. Among other threats, he allegedly claimed that it was ‘time’ to put two state election officials to death and that he was obligated to ‘put a bullet’ in the head of a Colorado state judge,” Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Nicole Argentieri, head of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division, said in a statement.
The case is part of the Justice Department’s Election Threats Task Force, which was launched in June 2021 amid spiking threats being direct at election officials following Trump’s 2020 election loss.
More than 16 cases have been brought by the task force, 11 of which have resulted in prison sentences.
In other cases from the task force, at least two defendants are awaiting sentencing, another has pleaded guilty and two others have been charged.
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Publish date : 2024-08-26 15:26:00
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