ATLANTA — A Georgia man has pleaded guilty after he threatened to shoot House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in the head on live television.
Cleveland Grover Meredith Jr. was one of the dozens of people arrested and charged in connection to the Jan. 6 Capitol riots in Washington.
Meredith is accused of making the threat in a text to family: “[t]hinking about heading over to Pelosi C[**]T’s speech and putting a bullet in her noggin on Live TV [purple devil emoji].”
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According to a report filed by federal agents, Meredith intended on attending the planned Trump protest on Jan. 6 but had car trouble on the way. Meredith headed to Washington anyway, where FBI agents found him at a hotel room on Jan. 7.
Meredith told agents he had two firearms in his vehicle. Agents found a Glock 19, 9-mm pistol, an assault rifle and hundreds of rounds of ammunition in a trailer attached to his truck. Meredith did not have registration to have any firearms in Washington.
Meredith showed agents the string of text messages in which he made the threats. At one point, a family member told Meredith he was worried about him. Meredith said he was “just having fun” and that he had “been on the radar for awhile and they now (sic) I am harmless.”
“I predict that within 12 days, many in our country will die,” he wrote in one text.
On Sept. 10, Meredith pleaded guilty to a felony count, which could carry a sentence of up to five years in prison, a $250,000 fine and up to three years of supervised release.
He will be sentenced Dec. 14 at 9:30 a.m.
Meredith’s past with Georgia
Meredith owned a car wash in Smyrna before moving to north Georgia about two years ago.
The Lovett School alumni had already been banned from the private school years prior due to threats, the school said in a statement.
“The Lovett School can confirm that Cleveland G. Meredith, Jr. is a 1986 graduate of the school. Lovett severed its relationship with this alumnus and banned him from campus in 2019 due to threats of violence,” the statement to Channel 2 Action News said.
In 2018, Meredith erected a billboard on Cobb Parkway in Acworth advertising the QAnon conspiracy theory, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. QAnon subscribers believe that there is a secret cabal of pedophiles within the government and Hollywood elites and that President Donald Trump is fighting a holy war against them.
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Meredith told The AJC at the time that he had put up the QAnon billboard because he was “a patriot among the millions who love this country.”
According to Fulton County records, Meredith’s ex-wife filed for divorce in 2019.
Hiawassee Police Chief Paul Smith said Meredith moved to the area about two years ago. As soon as he moved into town, Meredith’s parents alerted the department to their son’s QAnon beliefs and said his behavior had recently changed. Smith reported that information to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation.
Smith said he lived in a town house in Lake Chatuge and kept to himself. He did not have any run-ins with police there.
Meredith’s parents told the police department that their son moved to Clay County, North Carolina in December.
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