Man Faces Federal Charges for Threatening Emails to NIH Officials

U.S. Magistrate Judge Timothy Sullivan on Wednesday ordered Thomas Patrick Connally, Jr., 56, detained until his preliminary hearing on Aug. 11. He was charged with sending threatening emails to Dr. Anthony Fauci and Dr. Francis Collins of the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda and a religious leader in New Jersey.

Connally has no permanent address and lives in rental air bnb properties and a rented car, mainly in West Virginia. During a video appearance Wednesday, he was described as a highly intelligent man who held technical jobs for many years.

Sullivan called Connally a flight risk with “a persistent pattern” of sending threatening emails. He also noted that because Connelly works as a technical writer, he must use a computer and therefore could continue penning his threatening emails.

According to court documents, Connally sent a series of emails over seven months that threatened to harm and/or kill Fauci, Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and Chief Medical Advisor to President Joe Biden. The threats also included members of his family. In one particular email, it stated that Fauci and his family would be “dragged into the street, beaten to death, and set on fire.”

In an Dec. 28, 2020, an email to Fauci stated in the subject line, “Hope you get a bullet in your compromised satanic elf skull today.” In all capitalized letters, the email continued, “Hope someone takes a baseball bat and smashes your eyeballs out.”

On April 24, Fauci received seven threatening emails between 10:05 p.m. and 10:12 p.m. In one of those emails, it stated, “You and your disgusting wife and daughter are getting 6 mandatory shots to their disgusting pig snouts while you watch.”

On that same day, but 30 minutes earlier, Francis Collins, Director of the NIH, received four threatening emails.

According to the affidavit, the emails were sent between Dec. 28, 2020 and July 21. Connally is accused of using an email account from a provider of secure, encrypted email services based in Switzerland. An investigation revealed the encrypted email account was associated with Connally, according to the news release.  Pursuant to a search warrant, law enforcement obtained emails from a mail.com account which the affidavit alleges Connally used to communicate with the encrypted email address used to send the threatening emails.

Connally has been charged with threatening federal officials and interstate communication containing a threat. He could be sentenced to 10 years in federal prison for threats against a federal official and a maximum of five years in federal prison for interstate communication containing a threat to harm.

About Suzanne Pollak

Suzanne is a freelance reporter with Montgomery Community Media. She has over 35 years professional experience writing for newspapers, magazines, non-profit newsletters and the web.

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