COLLEGE PARK, MD: A man who threatened to kill a member of Congress from Maryland over baseless claims of a rigged presidential election was sentenced Thursday to eight consecutive weekends in prison and six months of home imprisonment.
US District Judge Richard Bennett also ordered 35-year-old Siddharth Kumar Mathur of West Friendship, Maryland, to perform 100 hours of community service. Mathur threatened Rep. Andy Harris, the lone Republican member of Maryland’s congressional delegation, in voicemail and webmail messages.
Harris said the death threats against him and his family terrified his wife and children, making them afraid to leave their home and basically imprisoned.
“I’m in an elected office. I expect threats like this to happen, especially in the current toxic political climate. It’s certainly not right, but threatening a family and children is especially wrong,” Harris said during a remote sentencing hearing on Thursday.
Mathur apologized for his actions and told the judge that he hoped to be an antidote to the ongoing root dysfunction in the outside world and a united force against polarisation.
Bennett ordered Mathur to serve the first of his eight consecutive weekends in prison from October 1.
You have become part of a toxic environment, and this is completely unacceptable in a civilized society.” Elected officials and their families should not be treated like this in any way, shape or form.
Prosecutors and defense lawyers jointly recommended a sentence of two years’ probation instead of a prison term. Prosecutors also asked Mathur to undergo six months of home detention and 100 hours of community service.
Mathur was accused of threatening a federal official in December. He pleaded guilty in June to making false statements.
Harris was the only member of a congressional delegation to states that supported former President Donald Trump’s efforts to reverse the outcome of the 2020 presidential election based on unsubstantiated claims of voter fraud.
In December, Harris was one of 126 House Republicans who signed a brief supporting the Texas lawsuit that sought to overturn President Joe Biden’s victory. The US Supreme Court dismissed the lawsuit.
According to prosecutors, in a message submitted through the Congressional website on December 10, Mathur threatened to kill the MP and blow up his office if he tried to take my vote.
I know where you and your family live. You will be eliminated, he wrote, referring to the Congressman as a beast that needs to be tortured and skinned alive.
Prosecutors said Mathur submitted the message using contact information and the address of a former neighbor and classmate, but investigators discovered a threat to Internet service at Mathur’s home.
According to prosecutors, about two minutes after sending the webmail message, Mathur called the congressman’s district office and left a voicemail message in which he threatened to slit my throat and kill his family if I played with my vote. Mathur also referred to Republicans who supported the Texas election trial. Investigators traced the call to a phone number registered in Mathur’s name.
According to prosecutors, when US Capitol Police investigators questioned him at his home on December 11, Mathur said he had left a threatening voicemail message in anger and would not hurt anyone. But he falsely denied threatening webmail, prosecutors said.
Mathur had no criminal record prior to this case.
Tragically, political violence of all stripes poses a clear and present threat to public safety and the functioning of our democracy, prosecutors wrote in a court filing. The respondent’s conduct showed his disapproval of that democracy and his willingness to repeatedly resort to violent threats when duly elected representatives take action with which he disagrees.
Prosecutors compared Mathur’s actions to that of a Maryland man who pleaded guilty in February 2020 to threatening to kill a Democratic member of Congress from Florida who sponsored vaccination requirements for public school students. That defendant, Darryl Albert Varnum, was sentenced to six months of home detention.
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