Michigan Man Charged With Threatening to Kill FBI Director Kash Patel
Federal prosecutors say Anthony Daniel Palazzolo, 42, sent a Facebook message threatening FBI Director Kash Patel and an associate, then threatened agents who interviewed him. He is detained ahead of a November 2 hearing.
A Michigan man has been arrested and charged with threatening to kill FBI Director Kash Patel and an associate of the director, federal prosecutors announced. Anthony Daniel Palazzolo, 42, of Chesterfield Township, Michigan, was arrested on October 30 and is charged with interstate communications involving threats, according to the office of U.S. Attorney Jerome F. Gorgon Jr. of the Eastern District of Michigan.
The criminal complaint alleges that on October 8, Palazzolo sent Patel's associate a Facebook message saying he had "put a hit out" on the associate and that Patel was a "dead mf too," prosecutors said. FBI agents traced the accounts to Palazzolo's home, about 30 miles north of Detroit, and interviewed him there on October 9, CNN reported from the complaint filed by FBI Special Agent Brian Koczenasz.
Prosecutors allege the threats continued after that interview: an email containing threats sent to an officer and several institutions on October 12, and voicemails the next day threatening to "use deadly force against every single one of you government officials," according to the Justice Department. Palazzolo appeared in federal court in Michigan before Magistrate Judge David R. Grand, who ordered him temporarily detained; a detention hearing is set for November 2, and he has not entered a plea.
The Justice Department's release carries the standard caution, which this station repeats because it governs how this case should be read: a criminal complaint is only a charging document and is not evidence of guilt, and the government bears the burden of proving guilt beyond a reasonable doubt at a fair trial. The case is being investigated by the FBI and prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Eaton Brown.
