Aug. 8 (UPI) — A 73-year-old Florida man has been sentenced to two years’ imprisonement for threatening to kill Rep. Eric Swalwell and his children, prosecutors said.
Michael Shapiro of Greenacres, Fla., was sentenced Wednesday by Judge David Leibowitz during a hearing in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., the Justice Department announced Thursday in a statement.
Shapiro was arrested at his home in early January on charges stemming from a series of voicemail he left the Democratic House representative for California a month prior.
Court records show that Shapiro called Swalwell’s Washington, D.C., office five times on Dec. 19, leaving multiple voicemail threatening to kill him and his family.
“I’m gonna come after you and kill you [expletive],” Shapiro said, according an excerpt of the voice mail produced in the complaint. “I’m gonna come and kill your children you mother-[expletive]. I’m gonna kill your children,” he said, according to a second excerpt.
According to the original complaint, Shapiro had referenced Swalwell’s alleged connections to suspected Chinese spy Christine Fang — ties that were investigated by the bipartisan House Ethics Committee, which declined to take any disciplinary actions against the House Democrat.
Shapiro pled guilty on May 17 to charges of transmitting threatening communications.
The senior is also facing charges of threatening to kill members of Michigan’s Council on American-Islamic Relations.
The indictment states the calls to the chapter occurred on Dec. 8, 14 and 15. In the calls, Shapiro allegedly called them “bastards,” “violent,” “killers” and “rapists,” among other insults, federal prosecutors said.
“I’m going to kill you [expletives]!” he is alleged to have said.
CAIR-MI said in a statement Thursday that they “welcomed” the news of Shapiro’s sentence and that they expect him to be handed further prison time for the threats he uttered toward its staff.