Man accused of trying to kill Joe Biden in Illinois
At the forthcoming inauguration in Washington, D.C., a suburban Chicago man suspected of trying to take the lives of President-elect Joe Biden and other Democrats was arrested, prosecutors have said.
In a news release, the U.S. Attorney's Office in Chicago said Louis Capriotti of Chicago Heights is facing a federal charge of transmitting a threat to interstate commerce. At a hearing on Tuesday afternoon, hours after the early morning arrest of Capriotti, the U.S. Judge Magistrate Gabriel A. Fuentes ordered him to remain in jail until Friday's detention hearing.
Capriotti, 45, is accused of leaving a voicemail accusing a member of the U.S. On December 29, the House of Representatives. Prosecutors said the caller said that if people "think Joe Biden will put his hand on the Bible and walk into the (expletive) White House on January 20th, they're sadly (expletive) wrong."
"He continued, according to the release, "We are going to surround the (expletive) White House and we are going to kill every (expletive) Democrat who steps on the (expletive) lawn.
Capriotti did not lodge a plea and made no comments with regard to the charges. Because of COVID-19, several hearings are conducted remotely, and after the judge called a brief recess, he could be heard on the line asking if his lawyer had called his mother. He clarified to the judge that he was on the phone.
Capriotti has repeatedly made profane and abusive phone calls to members of Congress since 2017, according to the criminal complaint filed by an FBI agent who investigated the case, and after an investigation found the calls originated from his phone, he admitted to the FBI that he had made other calls, claiming he was' only (expletive) with' members of Congress.
According to the lawsuit, in November and December last year, Capriotti left three members of Congress with profane and intimidating calls. The guy who wouldn't give his name in any of the calls said that he was in the Marine Corps and had previously killed terrorists. And after accusing a member of Congress of being a terrorist, he said, "He's going to keep killing (terrorists) because that's what I've been trained to do."
When they first reached out to him in February last year, Capriotti told federal agents that he had never served in the military.
The December 29 call that was made on the phone on Capriotti's account, according to the lawsuit, followed a similar pattern, with the caller claiming that he was qualified to kill terrorists and that the Democrats are (expletive) terrorists.
The call was made several days before a crowd of supporters of President Donald Trump forced its way into the U.S. Building a Capitol. Five persons, including a U.S. Police officer from the Capitol, who died in the January 6 attack on Washington. In the attack, hundreds of individuals were arrested, which briefly interrupted congressional business to confirm Biden as president.
