Over two days in September 2018, Gary Joseph Gravelle, made more than a dozen bomb, anthrax and death threats targeting then-President Donald Trump, a Vermont airport, federal court and prison officials in Connecticut, the New Haven NAACP and religious institutions across the state, court records show.
Gravelle was sentenced on Jan. 27 in a federal court to 110 months in prison followed by three years of supervised release.
According to court documents and statements made in court, on July 19, 2013, Gravelle was sentenced in Bridgeport federal court to 70 months of imprisonment, followed by three years of supervised release, for mailing numerous threatening letters in 2010. He was released from prison in 2015.
According to court documents and statements made in court, in September 2018 while on supervised release from prison, Gravelle used the U.S. mail, e-mail and telephone to threaten to harm people and explode property in Connecticut, Vermont and Washington. Certain letters that Gravelle mailed contained a white powdery substance and statements that the substance was Anthrax, a biological agent and toxin. Gravelle made threats to various mental health providers and facilities in New Haven, U.S. Probation Officers, a U.S. District Court Judge, an international airport in Vermont, a federal prison in Washington, occupants of a building in Old Saybrook, a credit union in Bristol, and organizations and religious centers in Connecticut. He also sent a letter threatening to kill the President of the United States.
Gravelle has been detained since his arrest on September 8, 2018. On January 6, 2020, he pleaded guilty to five counts of maliciously conveying false information about an explosive, one count related to the sending of hoax Anthrax letters, and one count of making threats against the President. He also admitted that he failed to comply with conditions of his supervised release.
The threats caused real-life turmoil across the state over those two days as massive police responses descended on the targeted locations, prosecutors said. Entire facilities were evacuated and some people even underwent decontamination procedures because of possible exposure to the chemical agent.
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