A Chula Vista man who posted death threats against a district attorney in Georgia over her prosecution of former President and President-elect Donald Trump was sentenced Friday to three months in prison.
Marc Shultz, 67, admitted posting threats in October of last year on YouTube, in which he stated, among other things, that Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis “will be killed like a dog.”
Schultz was angered over Willis’ prosecution of Trump for allegedly attempting to overturn his 2020 presidential election defeat in Georgia, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Georgia.
The indictment states that on another occasion, Shultz posted on a YouTube livestream, “Fani Willis will be dead in 2024.”
Shultz pleaded guilty in August to a single count of transmitting interstate threats.
His defense attorney, Emily Child, said at her client’s sentencing hearing that Shultz had no intention or capability of actually carrying out the threats.
Nonetheless, she said he “crossed the line” and understood that law enforcement had no way of knowing whether or not his threats were credible. Child sought a sentence of probation and cited Shultz’s age and health issues as reasons why custody wasn’t appropriate.
Shultz told U.S. District Judge Todd Robinson, “I’m very sorry for what I did” and added, “I didn’t think it through, the consequences.”
While Robinson agreed with the defense that Shultz’s threats were not likely to be carried out, he called his conduct “unacceptable” and said a custodial sentence was needed to deter others from engaging in the same behavior.
– City News Service
