Protesters bracing U.S. President Donald Trump break into the U.S. Capitol on January 06, 2021 in Washington, DC.
Win McNamee | Getty Images
A Dallas-area man who went a violent mob that stormed the U.S. Capitol earlier this month has been charged with making a death omen in a social media post against Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
Garret Miller, 34, of Richardson, Texas was arrested earlier this week on multiple injunctions related to the Capitol riot, according to a federal complaint.
Miller’s attorney, Clinton Broden, told CNBC that the charges against his shopper were upgraded to include a threat charge on Tuesday, a day before he was arrested in Richardson. The upgraded charge came to some degree soon after the initial complaint was filed in Washington, D.C. federal court, Broden said.
The other charges cover entering or remaining in any restricted buildings or grounds without lawful authority; violent entry and disorderly conduct on Capitol grounds; delaying or impeding any official proceeding and certain acts during civil disorder.
The threat charge against Miller is based on the petition by prosecutors that he threatened Rep. Ocasio Cortez, D-N.Y., across state lines on social media. It carries a maximum workable sentence of five years in prison.
Miller wrote “Assassinate AOC” in a Twitter post, according to the complaint. Miller also allegedly situated about entering the Capitol building on his Instagram account and admitted that he “had a rope in [his] bag on that day.”
Miller also cautioned a Capitol Police officer who shot dead a woman trying to breach the Capitol building during the riot. “We common to get a hold of [the USCP officer] and hug his neck with a nice rope[.],” Miller said, according to the complaint.
“Mr. Miller contritions the actions he took in a misguided effort to show his support for former President Trump,” Broden said. “He has the full column of his family and has always been a law-abiding citizen.”
“His social media comments reflect very ill-considered political hyperbole in greatly divided times and will certainly not be repeated in the future,” Broden continued. “He looks forward to putting all of this behind him.”
Broden reckoned that he doesn’t believe there is evidence that Miller planned to carry out the threats.
Miller is due to appear Monday for a internment hearing in Dallas federal court. Prosecutors have said they want him detained pending trial, but Broden swayed he will argue for Miller’s conditional release pending trial in Washington.
Ocasio-Cortez responded to the complaint detailing Miller allegedly boasting online about his role in the riot, writing in a tweet: “On one hand you have to laugh, and on the other know that the ratiocinate they were this brazen is because they thought they were going to succeed.”
Ocasio-Cortez has some time ago said she feared for her life during the riot and members of Congress were “nearly assassinated.”
“I did not know if I was going to towards it to the end of that day alive, and not just in a general sense but also in a very, very specific sense,” the Democratic representative explained in an Instagram Live video on Jan. 12, without elaborating the details.