A former Maryland state employee admitted making threats to member of Congress, federal prosecutors said.
A former Maryland state employee pleaded guilty Thursday with threatening to murder a member of Congress from Texas, federal prosecutors said in a statement.
According to plea agreement information released by prosecutors, the Texas district office of a Congress member reported that it received a threatening message via an event management website on July 18. The website was being used by a planner to coordinate an event held in Missouri that the lawmaker was scheduled to attend.The lawmaker’s Washington office reported that a similar message was sent July 22 using the same event management website. The lawmaker was not identified.
Investigators tracked threats made to the district office in Texas that were tied to a private high-speed network operated by the state of Maryland. The IP address and Virtual Private Network used were registered to Justin Kuchta, 39, of Annapolis, prosecutors said.The threats appeared to refer to a baseless claim linking Sen. Ted Cruz to the Zodiac killer, a serial murderer from the 1960s who was never identified.
A spokesperson for former Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan identified Kuchta as a former employee with the Office of the Comptroller. Kuchta faces a maximum sentence of five years in federal prison for interstate communication containing a threat to injure, the statement said. Sentencing is scheduled for April 27.
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