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ATLANTA — An Alabama man pleaded guilty this week for threatening phone calls against Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis and Fulton County Sheriff Pat Labat.
The U.S. Department of Justice charged Arthur Ray Hanson II for the phone calls he made a week before a special grand purpose jury indicted former President Donald Trump and 18 others in the Georgia election interference case.
On Tuesday, he pleaded guilty to the charges.
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“I made a stupid phone call. I’m not a violent person,” Hanson said in federal court, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
The DOJ accused Hanson of calling Fulton County government’s customer service line and leaving voicemails for Willis and Labat.
In a message for Willis, Hanson is alleged to have warned her to watch out, that she won’t always have people around who can protect her, that there would be moments when she would be vulnerable. “When you charge Trump on that fourth indictment, anytime you’re alone, be looking over your shoulder,” he said, among other things, according to the indictment.
In the message for Labat, Hanson threatened the sheriff over the idea of taking a mugshot, the indictment says. Among his alleged comments are: “If you take a mug shot of the president and you’re the reason it happened, some bad (expletive)’s gonna happen to you,” and “You gonna get (expletive) up you keep (expletive) with my president.”
Hanson told the court on Tuesday that he was angered by the Georgia election indictment and made the phone calls hoping authorities would back down.
“I didn’t knowingly know I was threatening anybody,” he told the judge. “To me, it was a warning.”
Hanson will be sentenced in federal court at a later date.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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