Left to right: New York Justice Juan Merchan. March 14, 2024 (AP Photo/Seth Wenig), Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, Dec. 4, 2023 (Lev Radin/Sipa USA/Sipa via AP), U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell, Dec. 2014 (AP Photo/Stephen J. Boitano), U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, May 2008 (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak, File).
A 32-year-old Nevada man has been charged with threatening to assault and kill a large number of federal and state officials including prominent judges in Washington, D.C., the judge and district attorney involved in Donald Trump's criminal hush-money case, the judge who oversaw Trump's defamation case brought by E. Jean Carroll and at least one U.S. lawmaker.
The Justice Department announced on Wednesday that a grand jury in Las Vegas returned a 22-count indictment against Spencer Christjencody Gear for the deluge of frightening harassment that started in November 2023 and continued until just a few weeks ago on July 7.
He was arrested at his Las Vegas home on Tuesday and put into custody. Politico reported first that Gear allegedly grabbed an FBI drone that was flown into his house as authorities tried to arrest him and chucked it out of a window.
Court records show Gear is accused of making a series of felonious, disturbing and violent threats to federal officials including vows to murder, assault or injure them while they are engaged in their official duties.
The indictment did not name all of Gear's targets but prosecutors identified some of the victims by their initials in court records. In the Politico report published Thursday, the outlet verified through a person familiar with the case who was granted permission to discuss it anonymously that some of the people Gear allegedly threatened include:
- New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan
- U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan
- 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
Merchan oversaw Trump's criminal hush-money and election interference trial; Kaplan oversaw both of the defamation cases brought against Trump by veteran writer E. Jean Carroll. Howell, Kollar-Kotelly, Cobb, Walton and Cooper are all prominent jurists in Washington, D.C., who have overseen cases involving former President Donald Trump as well as presided over cases involving Jan. 6 defendants.
The identity of the allegedly threatened lawmaker is unclear. The Justice Department only revealed in its statement that the federal judges and state employees who were targeted were in Washington, D.C., New York, New Jersey and Montana.
Politico reported that during Gear's bail hearing in Las Vegas on Tuesday, 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, Assistant U.S. Attorney Jacob Operskalski said Gear was particularly chauvinistic.
"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 is accused of saying.
Operskalski also shared that Gear allegedly continued in that same voicemail: "If you keep trying to fight this war against liberty, you will be dead."
Mere days after Trump was convicted by a jury on 34 felony counts for falsifying records in order to conceal his hush-money payment to adult content creator Stormy Daniels ahead of the 2016 election, Gear allegedly left a message for Merchan. It targeted both the judge and Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg.
"The Constitution will reign supreme when we start executing filth like you. You are a dead man," Gear said, according to federal prosecutors.
Operskalski also urged the magistrate judge in Las Vegas to keep Gear in custody pending trial and called him a "far right extremist" as he noted that the U.S. is only two weeks removed from an assassination attempt on Trump.
"Although this is a far-right extremist, it's an example of what could happen if we let a person like Mr. Gear out of custody when he has told us exactly what he is going to do. We should take him at his word," Operskalski reportedly said.
A lawyer for Gear could not immediately be reached for comment on Thursday.
A jury trial is now on the schedule for Sept. 24 before U.S. District Judge Jennifer Dorsey in Nevada.
If convicted, Gear faces a maximum of 10 years in prison for every count of threatening a federal official. He also faces a penalty of up to 5 years in prison for each count of transmitting a threat to injure.
Of his 22 counts, 10 are for threatening federal officials and 12 are for transmissions of those threats.