WASHINGTON – A West Virginia man has been sentenced to three years in prison for threatening top United States Covid-19 advisor Anthony Fauci and other officials over their handling of the pandemic.
Thomas Connally, 57, of Snowshoe, pleaded guilty to making email threats between December 2020 and July 2021, the US attorney’s office for Maryland said.
One of the emails threatened that Fauci and his family would be “dragged into the street, beaten to death, and set on fire”, the attorney’s office said in a statement.
US district judge Paula Xinis sentenced Connally on Thursday to 37 months in federal prison followed by three years of supervised release.
“Everyone has the right to disagree, but you do not have the right to threaten a federal official’s life,” US attorney for the district of Maryland Erek Barron said.
“Threats like these will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”
Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), is the chief medical advisor to President Joe Biden and has been the most prominent public face of the government response to Covid-19.
Connally also admitted sending threatening emails to then-NIH director Francis Collins for publicly espousing the need for vaccinations against Covid-19.
Fauci, 81, has announced plans to retire at the end of Biden’s current term.
He currently lives with security protection after receiving death threats and harassment. – AFP, August 6, 2022
