Alaska man charged with threatening to kill six Supreme Court justices
Members of the Supreme Court sit for a group photo in 2022. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)
An Alaska man was arrested after allegedly threatening to torture and assassinate six Supreme Court justices and their relatives, the Justice Department announced Thursday.
Panos Anastasiou, 76, is accused of sending more than 465 messages through the Supreme Court’s public website—many of them violent, racist and homophobic, according to an indictment filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Alaska.
He pleaded not guilty to the 22 charges he faces: nine counts of making threats against a federal judge and 13 counts of making threats in interstate commerce.
The indictment does not accuse Anastasiou of attempting to carry out the threats. Nor does it name which of the nine Supreme Court justices were threatened. The court has a 6-3 split between conservatives and liberals.
“We allege that the defendant made repeated, heinous threats to murder and torture Supreme Court Justices and their families to retaliate against them for decisions he disagreed with,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement announcing the charges. “Our justice system depends on the ability of judges to make their decisions based on the law, and not on fear. Our democracy depends on the ability of public officials to do their jobs without fearing for their lives or the safety of their families.”
A Supreme Court spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment. The attorney for the defendant declined to comment.
Anastasiou’s arrest comes as threats against local and federal officials are surging. Garland told Congress in June that the Justice Department has established a threats task force and said his agency intends to aggressively investigate and prosecute such threats. In May, a Queens man pleaded guilty in D.C. to threatening to kill a congressional aide and making more than 12,000 harassing phone calls to members of Congress.
In 2022, a man with a gun and knife was arrested outside of Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh’s Maryland home. And in the past 10 weeks, there have been two apparent assassination attempts against former president Donald Trump, the 2024 Republican presidential nominee.
In the case announced Thursday, the Justice Department said Anastasiou began sending threatening messages in spring 2023 and continued sending them through at least July 2024.
Prosecutors told the court that in recent months, the suspect seemed particularly angry about the Supreme Court’s presidential immunity decision, in which the conservative bloc ruled that presidents cannot be criminally prosecuted for acts that are considered official parts of their duties.
That decision was in response to Trump’s request to dismiss the D.C. federal election interference case brought against him by special counsel Jack Smith. Trump argued that presidential immunity should protect him from prosecution.
The Supreme Court said former presidents may be prosecuted for unofficial acts, but did not say which acts in the indictment would be considered official or unofficial. A trial judge must now reassess which parts of the case can move forward. Those decisions will almost certainly be appealed, ensuring that the case will not go to trial before the 2024 election - and could be delayed until 2026 or beyond.
“WE NEED MASS ASSASSINATIONS. If you’re corrupt you’re corrupt,” the suspect allegedly wrote in an expletive-filled message to the Supreme Court that included an apparent reference to “official and unofficial” acts. “The internet is abuzz with Americans clamoring for your ASSASSINATIONS.”
In a memo asking Magistrate Judge Kyle F. Reardon to keep Anastasiou detained until a potential trial or guilty plea, federal prosecutors wrote that the suspect had admitted to investigators that he sent the messages. They also said the email address used to send the messages contained the suspect’s name.
According to prosecutors, the suspect threatened to lynch the justices, encouraged other people to participate in violence against the Supreme Court and said that assassination is “patriotic.”
“I’m going to call and urge my fellow Vietnam veterans … to drive by the [Supreme Court Justice 2]’s house with their AR15’s,” one May message said.
“I’d like to see them TORTURED worse than Kim Jung Un [sic] would torture his own family,” read a June message referencing the North Korean dictator.
Prosecutors wrote that the defendant’s threats were “extreme and repeated. His racist, homophobic, vile rhetoric is meant to intimidate high level government officials from carrying out their official duties.”
Reardon, who oversaw Anastasiou’s initial court appearance and arraignment Wednesday, agreed to temporarily detain him.
Authorities also told the judge that Anastasiou has a history of threatening public officials and allegedly sent similar threatening messages to a state governor.
Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, called on Democrats and Republicans to condemn threats and violence in the wake of the arrest.
“Threats and acts of violence are unacceptable. Period,” Durbin said in an email. “Public officials, including those who work in the judiciary, must be able to do their jobs without fear for their lives or the safety of their families.”
Mark Berman, Justin Jouvenal, Tobi Raji and Aaron Schaffer contributed to this report.
