Man who threatened to kill Arizona Gov. Hobbs, other Democratic election officials plead guilty

DENVER – A Colorado man repeatedly threatened online to kill his state’s and Arizona’s top election officials — both Democrats — as well as a judge and law enforcement officers, a plea alleges. of guilt which he pleaded to on Wednesday.

Teak Ty Brockbank, 45, admitted before a federal judge in Denver that his comments were made “out of fear, hatred and anger” as he sat dressed in a khaki prison uniform before pleading guilty to a count of transmitting interstate threats. He faces up to five years in prison when he is sentenced on February 3.

Brockbank’s case is the 16th conviction obtained by the Justice Department’s Election Threat Task Force, which Attorney General Merrick Garland formed in 2021 to combat rising threats targeting the voting community.

“As we approach Election Day“The Justice Department’s warning remains clear: Anyone who unlawfully threatens an election worker, official or volunteer will face consequences,” Garland said in a statement.

Brockbank did not provide details Wednesday about the threats he made, and court documents outlining the plea agreement were not immediately made public. His attorney, Thomas Ward, declined to comment after the hearing.

However, the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Colorado said in a statement that the plea agreement included threats made by Brockbank against election officials — identified in evidence as Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold and Katie Hobbs, former Arizona Secretary of State, now governor of the state..

Griswold has been outspoken nationally about election security and has received threats in the past because of her emphasis on 2020 election security. Her office says she has received more frequent threats and most violent since September 2023, when a group of voters filed a lawsuit to try to impeach the former president. Donald Trump of the Colorado primary ballot.

“I refuse to be intimidated and will continue to ensure that every eligible Republican, Democrat“, and unaffiliated voters can make their voices heard in our elections,” Griswold said in a statement released after Brockbank’s plea.

Investigators say Brockbank began expressing the view that violence against public officials was necessary in late 2021. According to a detention motion, Brockbank told investigators after his arrest that he was not a ‘vigilante’ and hoped his messages would “wake people up.” He has been in prison since his arrest on August 23 in Cortes, Colorado.

Brockbank criticized the government’s response to Tina Peters, a former Colorado county clerk convicted this year of allowing a violation of its election system inspired by false claims of voter fraud in the 2020 presidential race, according to court documents . It was also upended in December 2023 after a divided Colorado Supreme Court. Trump was removed of the state’s presidential primary vote.

In a social media post in August 2022, referencing Griswold and Hobbs, Brockbank said: “Once these people start being put to death, the rest will melt like snowflakes and turn on each other. others,” according to copies of the threats included in court. documents. In September 2021, Brockbank said Griswold should “be hung by her neck until she’s dead, dead, dead”, saying he and other “ordinary people” needed to hold her and the others accountable. others, prosecutors said.

Brockbank also posted in October 2021 that he could use his rifle to “put a bullet” in the head of a state judge who had overseen Brockbank’s probation for his fourth conviction for driving under the influence, under the plea agreement, prosecutors said.

Prosecutors say Brockbank also admitted to posting in July 2022 that he would shoot without warning any federal agent who showed up at his home. Prosecutors said earlier in court documents that a half-dozen guns were found in his home after his arrest, including a loaded one near his front door, even though he cannot legally possess guns. firearms due to a conviction for attempted theft by receiving stolen property. in Utah in 2002.

The investigation was launched in August 2022 after Griswold’s office notified federal authorities about posts made on Gab and Rumble, a alternative video sharing platform who has been criticized for enabling and sometimes encouraging far-right extremism, according to court documents.

And although Brockbank only pleaded guilty to threats made between September 2021 and August 2022, prosecutors say he has made more since then.

In December 2023, after the Colorado Supreme Court ruled that Trump should not appear on the state’s primary ballot, Brockbank reportedly told his father-in-law in a text that he was adding the four justices who supported removing Trump. Trump on “my list”. The United States Supreme Court then reinstated Trump on the voting rolls.

And last July, prosecutors say, Brockbank continued to threaten Griswold because his office triggered the investigation into Peters by notifying authorities of the 2021 data breach.

Peters was sentenced to almost nine years behind bars this month for allowing access to the county election system to a man affiliated with My Pillow CEO Mike Lindell, a prominent promoter of false claims that voting machines were manipulated to steal the election. Authorities investigated separate threats made against his trial judgeMatthew Barrett. Most of the messages appear to have been strongly worded, but none appear to constitute a crime, Mesa County Sheriff’s Office spokeswoman Wendy Likes said Tuesday.

In 2022, a Nebraska man pleaded guilty to make death threats against Griswold in what officials said was the first such plea secured by the Election Threat Task Force.

The longest sentences handed down so far by the Justice Department task force — 3.5 years in prison — came in separate cases involving election officials in Arizona. In one case, a man who advocated “a mass shooting of poll workers” posted threatening statements in November 2022 about two people. Maricopa County officials and their children, prosecutors said.

In the other, a Massachusetts man pleaded guilty to sending a bomb threat in February 2021 to an elections official in the Arizona secretary of state’s office.

Another man was sentenced Monday to 30 months in prison for sending threatening messages to a Maricopa County elections Instagram account.