Mercer man sent to prison for threatening FBI over Trump raid
A federal judge has handed down a two-year prison term to a Mercer man for threatening FBI agents over social media back in August of 2022.
The sentence was issued Wednesday in the same U.S. District Court in Pittsburgh where Adam Bies pled guilty earlier to 14 counts including charges of interstate threats and retaliating against a federal officer by threat. When Bies completes his sentence, he will be on supervised release for another three years.
The charges stem from threats made by Bies to FBI agents over the far-right social media app, Gab in reference to the August 2022 raid of former President, Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago home.
Bies made multiple threatening posts on the app under the alias "Adam Kenneth Campbell" with messages such as "If you work for the FBI, you deserve to die" and "Come and get me you piece of [expletive] feds. I'm going to [expletive] slaughter you."
In a memorandum seeking a sentence of 30 to 37 months in prison, a federal prosecutor said Bies "created an extremely dangerous situation that could easily have resulted in tragedy."
The day after his call for civil war, investigators say Bies made a series of threats on Gab against the lives of FBI agents. On August 10, for example, he wrote: “HEY FEDS. We the people cannot WAIT to water the trees of liberty with your blood. I’ll be waiting for you to kick down my door.”
Again on August 10, he threatened that “[e]very single piece of s**t who works for the FBI in any capacity, from the director down to the janitor who cleans their f***ing toilets deserves to die. You’ve declared war on us and now it’s open season on YOU.”
Bies's public defender, responding in a sentencing memo of her own, admits that Bies crossed the line into illegal activity, taking his political rhetoric too far.
His attorney is asking the judge to sentence Bies to the fourteen months he had already served.
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