Richard Mel Phillips, 36, was arrested this week in Florida after he admitted to making threatening phone calls to members of U.S. Congress who "made him angry," FBI officials said. (Marion County Jail)
Federal agents said they arrested a man in Florida this week after he admitted to making threatening phone calls to members of Congress who “made him angry.”
The suspect, identified as Richard Mel Phillips, 36, “smiled” when FBI agents played back the voicemail recordings when they visited the home he shares with his mother.
After the FBI identified Phillips as the caller, they charged him with transmitting threatening communications, Lakeland newspaper the Ledger reported.
In one message left in August, the caller tells a member that he was going to “stick a bullet through your f---- skull,” according to records obtained by the paper.
“The caller states repeatedly that ‘You’re all going to f---- die'; and emphasizes that he is ‘not f----- kidding around with you motherf-----s,’” the records say.
When the FBI interviewed Phillips at his Fruitland Park home, he admitted making phone calls to politicians because "they made him angry,” and he blamed them for his unemployment, the paper reported.
In the calls to lawmakers, Phillips also threatened to “slaughter” FBI agents if they were sent to his house, Orlando news station WFTV-TV reported.
While the names of the Congress members were not revealed, the criminal complaint made reference to a member with the initials M.W., who received a two-minute voicemail from Phillips, FOX35 Orlando reported.
The FBI concluded that Phillips, who doesn’t have any weapons, money or plans to leave the state, “did not have the means” to carry out any of the threats, the Ledger reported.
Phillips was being held in the Marion County Jail on federal charges.
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