LAS VEGAS — A Las Vegas man has been charged with threatening government officials in three states and the District of Columbia, including the New York judge and prosecutor handling the former president’s case. Donald Trump’s hush money caseaccording to federal officials and court documents.
Spencer Gear, 32, was being held in federal custody in Nevada Friday following his arrest and not guilty plea Tuesday to 22 felony charges of threatening a federal officer and transmitting a communication with a threat to injure. Gear’s indictment had been filed under seal on July 16.
Rebecca Levy, a federal public defender representing Gear in U.S. District Court in Las Vegas, did not respond to requests for comment Friday.
The indictment names 11 alleged victims by initials, including two in a Nevada-to-New York phone call in which “AB and JM were threatened with death,” referring to Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg and New York Judge Juan M. Merchan.
Bragg’s office declined to comment. A message was left for a spokesman for the New York state court system.
In her order remanding Gear in federal custody ahead of trial, U.S. District Judge Brenda Weksler cited “the volume of calls involved in this case,” which included victims in New Jersey and Montana.
The judge turned to a recording of a June 3 phone call “that was addressed to a judge and a prosecutor” and called the language Gear allegedly used “of grave concern to the court.”
That date was the Monday after a jury found Trump guilty on all 34 counts in a scheme to illegally influence the 2016 election by a hush money payment to a porn actor who said the two had sex. Trump’s lawyers have he has since asked Merchan to quash the verdictreferring to the Supreme Court’s recent immunity decision. The judge said he will rule in September.
Weksler noted that Gear had little criminal history, citing two traffic violations. However, last week he was charged by federal authorities with resisting arrest.
“The suspect appears to have no respect for the legal system and for judges,” the police judge said. The trial is scheduled for September 24.
Bragg’s office, which prosecuted Trump’s hush-money case, reported at least 56 “criminal threats” against Bragg, his family and staff, and nearly 500 threatening emails and phone calls since April.
They included bomb threats at the homes of two people involved in the case on the first day of Trump’s trial, April 15; a photo showing sniper sights aimed at people involved in the case, police said; and threatening messages such as “we will kill all of you” and “Your lives are over.”
In 2023, police recorded 89 threats against Bragg, his family or staff. In 2022, his first year in office, there was one threat.
The wave of threats began this year on March 18, according to a sworn statement by the Braggs police chief, the day Trump falsely reported online that he was being arrested and encouraged his supporters to protest and “take back our nation!”
A few days later, Bragg’s office received a letter containing a small amount of white powder and a note that read, “Alvin: I’m going to kill you.”
According to court officials, Merchan has also received dozens of death threats.
After Trump’s indictment in April 2023, a state court spokesman said Merchan’s chambers had “received the predictable harassing and defamatory phone calls and emails.”
In April, a 26-year-old New York man was charged with sending text messages threatening New York State Attorney General Letitia James and the judge in Trump’s civil fraud case, Arthur Engoron, with “death and physical harm” if they did not “cease” their “actions” in the Trump case.
In August 2023, FBI agents killed a gunman from Utah who was suspected of threatening Bragg, Garland, James and President Joe Biden. Family members of Craig Deleeuw Robertson, who was killed by officers while trying to execute a search warrant in Provo, Utah, described him as a gun enthusiast who worried about “government corruption and overreach.”
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Sisak reported from New York.