Alaska man charged with sending racist and violent threats to six people Supreme Court judges and their family members.
Federal prosecutors in Anchorage are asking a judge to keep Panos Anastasiou, 76, in custody pending trial for making graphic threats that escalated after he was questioned by FBI agents about messages he sent through a Supreme Court website.
He was accused of assaulting, kidnapping and threatening to kill six judges, as well as some of their family members, and pleaded not guilty.
“We allege that the defendant made repeated, vile threats to kill and torture Supreme Court justices and their families in retaliation for decisions he disagreed with,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement. state officials should do their jobs without fear for their lives and the safety of their families.”
Court documents in the case allege that between March 10, 2023 and July 16, 2024, Anastasiou sent more than 465 messages to the high court through a public website.
They have been increasingly threatened, including assassination threats against judges last January. Anastasiou also makes lynching threats and uses the N-word in remarks directed at the justice, identified in the indictment as “Judge 1 of the Supreme Court.” Clarence ThomasWho is black?
The messages also contain racial, homophobic and misogynistic slurs.
Anastasiou’s attorney, Jane Imholte of the federal public defender’s office in Alaska, declined to comment. Anastasiou is expected to appear in court on Thursday for a detention hearing.
Prosecutors argue that Anastasiou should remain in prison because he “risks continuing to threaten federal officials” and “there is a risk that he may seek to use some form of violence against those he has previously threatened.”
Their submission adds that “the evidence of guilt in the case is overwhelming.” “The defendant admitted to sending the messages, the IP addresses the information to his home, and the email address contained the defendant’s name,” she said.