Inset: Spencer Gear (Washoe County Sheriff's Office). Background: President Donald Trump smiles as he speaks in the Oval Office of the White House, Tuesday, May 20, 2025, in Washington (AP Photo/Alex Brandon).
A Nevada man is headed to prison for threatening federal judges who handled cases involving President Donald Trump and Jan. 6 rioters, as well as public officials, saying things like, "I'll spill your blood" and "you can't do s— to Donald Trump."
Spencer Gear, 34, of Las Vegas, tried to eat his words on Monday at his sentencing — telling the court, "I'm embarrassed that I ever talked to people in such a manner," according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal. "He is open to rehabilitation," said Assistant Federal Public Defender Rebecca Levy.
Gear was convicted by a jury following a trial in February for threatening to "assault and murder" public officials over a seven-month period, the Justice Department reports. He was sentenced Monday by U.S. District Judge Jennifer A. Dorsey, a Barack Obama appointee, to 60 months in prison followed by three years of supervised release.
"According to court documents and evidence presented at trial, from November 30, 2023, through July 7, 2024, Spencer Christjencody Gear threatened public officials using vulgar and violent language in a series of phone calls and sent an email threatening to assault and murder eight federal officials, including judges, as well as three state employees," the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Nevada said in a press release. "The threats were intended to intimidate and interfere with the officials as they carried out their duties and to retaliate against them for actions taken in their official roles in Washington, D.C., New York, and Montana."
Some of Gear's targets included prominent judges in Washington, D.C., the judge and prosecutor involved in Trump's criminal hush-money case — Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg and New York State Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan — and U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan, the judge who oversaw Trump's defamation case brought by E. Jean Carroll.
Other targets included:
- U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell
- U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly
- U.S. District Judge Jia Cobb
- U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton
- U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper
Howell, Kollar-Kotelly, Cobb, Walton and Cooper are all prominent jurists in Washington, D.C., who have overseen cases involving Trump and presided over cases involving Jan. 6 defendants.
Politico reported that during Gear's first bail hearing in Las Vegas, prosecutors described him as a "ticking time bomb" and emphasized that his profanity-laced threats promising to execute his victims featured words "reminiscent of the Holocaust as he dehumanizes his victims, calling them filth, calling them trash."
In one call to a female judge, Gear made comments targeting the judge's gender.
"You are a woman. You have to have men do things for you … You can't do s— to Donald Trump unless you send a man to do it," Gear said in a voicemail to the judge.
Days after Trump was convicted by a jury on 34 felony counts for falsifying records to conceal his hush-money payment to adult content creator Stormy Daniels ahead of the 2016 election, Gear left a message for Merchan threatening both the judge and DA Bragg.
"The Constitution will reign supreme when we start executing filth like you. You are a dead man," Gear said.
Prosecutors referred to him as a "far right extremist" while arguing for him to be detained pending trial.
Gear was convicted after a six-day trial on nine counts of threatening a federal official and 11 counts of transmitting a communication containing a threat to injure. He argued that his words were no different from ones used by the president in the past.
"Politically engaged people — elected and not — now commonly describe their opponents as treasonous and remind them that the punishment for treason is death," a defense motion said.
Brandi Buchman contributed to this report.
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