Man Arrested in Florida for Allegedly Threatening to Kill Obama
A man who police said was storing a stockpile of weapons and ammunition in his Miami hotel room is being investigated for allegedly making threats against Barack Obama and President Bush, FOX News confirms.
FOXNews.com
Thursday, August 07, 2008
A man who police said was storing a stockpile of weapons and ammunition in his Miami hotel room is being investigated for allegedly making threats against Barack Obama and President Bush, FOX News confirms.
Raymond Hunter Geisel, 22, appeared in court Thursday after he was arrested by the Secret Service Saturday and held at Miami's detention center without bail.
A Secret Service affidavit alleges that Geisel made the threat during a training class for bail bondsmen in late July.
Someone else in that class said Geisel referred to Obama with a racial epithet and said, "If he gets elected, I'll assassinate him myself."
Another classmate told authorities she heard Geisel say he hated Bush and wanted to put a bullet in his head.
The affidavit stated that Geisel's vehicle and hotel room were filled with military-style gear and weapons, including a loaded handgun, combat knives, a machete, batons, a stun gun, tear gas canisters and many rounds of ammunition for various guns. He was allegedly storing armor-piercing handgun ammunition as well.
Obama was most recently in Florida on Aug. 1-2 but did not visit the South Florida area.
Geisel denied in a written statement to a Secret Service agent that he ever made those threats, and the documents don't indicate that he ever took steps to carry out any assassination. He was charged only with threatening Obama, the presumptive Democratic nominee, but not for any threat against President Bush.
Geisel's court-appointed attorney declined comment.
In the interview with a Secret Service agent, Geisel said "if he wanted to kill Senator Obama he simply would shoot him with a sniper rifle, but then he claimed that he was just joking," according to court documents.
Geisel told the Secret Service he was originally from Bangor, Maine, and had been living recently in a houseboat in the Florida Keys town of Marathon, according to court documents. He said he used the handgun for training for the bail bondsman class, had the knives for protection and used the machete to cut brush in Maine.
In the affidavit, the Secret Service said Geisel told agents that he suffered from psychiatric problems including post-traumatic stress disorder, but he couldn't provide the names of any facilities where he sought treatment.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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