Virginia Man Charged With Threatening to Kill VP Kamala Harris

Vice President and 2024 Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris walks to deliver remarks before departing George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston, Texas, on Aug. 1, 2024. Mark Felix/AFP via Getty Images

A Virginia man was arrested on Aug. 2 after allegedly making multiple violent threats against Vice President Kamala Harris on the social media platform GETTR.

Frank Lucio Carillo, of Winchester, Virginia, was charged with violating 18 U.S.C. § 871, which criminalizes threats to harm or kill the president, vice president, or other officials in the line of succession, according to the criminal complaint and arrest warrant filed in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Virginia on Aug. 2.

The FBI was alerted to the alleged threats on July 27, when the Maricopa County Recorder’s Office in Arizona reported potential threats to Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer made by the GETTR user “joemadarats1.”

The alleged threats were posted six days after President Joe Biden announced that he wouldn’t seek reelection and endorsed Harris to take over at the top of the Democratic ticket.

The threats were made after an assassination attempt against former President Donald Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, at a Pennsylvania rally on July 13.

The FBI’s Phoenix office stated that it conducted open-source research and discovered numerous threatening posts by the same user targeting several public officials including Harris, Biden, and FBI Director Christopher Wray.

According to the complaint, the GETTR account “joemadarats1” mentioned Harris 19 times, with posts containing many threats against her, including saying that he would “cut [her] eyes out” and set her “on fire alive,” along with much more profane language and graphic threats.

The FBI initiated an investigation and traced the GETTR account to an email address that was linked to Carillo via an analysis of Google and T-Mobile records, investigators noted. Further investigation revealed that the IP addresses used to post the threats matched those associated with Carillo’s residence in Winchester, Virginia.

On Aug. 2, a federal search warrant was executed at Carillo’s residence. Law enforcement officers seized an AR-15 rifle and a 9 mm handgun from the home.

During initial contact with law enforcement, Carillo allegedly asked why law enforcement was there and FBI special agent Nicholas Olson indicated to him it was related to something he posted online, according to court documents.

Carillo allegedly expressed disbelief over the situation, “... for a comment. This is ridiculous, for a comment. I guess I’m gonna need a lawyer,” the complaint states.

The complaint alleges Carillo later told another law enforcement officer on the scene that if it was “about the online stuff,“ he ”posted it.”

The Epoch Times attempted to reach Carillo on the charges, but an attorney was not listed on the federal court system’s docket as of noon on Aug. 5.