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He said that his response to this was terribly misguided, was wrong, and Ive paid a heavy price.

Before the charges, Mr. Hunt, an aspiring actor, held a clerical job with the New York State courts system. (He has since been fired.) He also had a long history of promoting violent conspiracy theories online, including that the 2012 Sandy Hook massacre was a hoax and that the grunge rock star Kurt Cobain, who killed himself in 1994, was murdered.

The case against Mr. Hunt centered on a series of social media posts he made starting in December 2020, in which he encouraged the public execution of prominent Democrats in Congress, including Senator Chuck Schumer and Representatives Nancy Pelosi and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

A central question at the trial was whether a reasonable person would view Mr. Hunts statements as serious threats. Prosecutors had to show that Mr. Hunt meant to interfere with the official duties of members of Congress, or to retaliate against them for certifying the election.

The statements included two Dec. 6 Facebook posts in which he described the Democratic lawmakers as high-value targets, and exhorted like-minded citizens to start up the firing squads, mow down these commies, and lets take america back!

The jury also saw a profanity-laced, 88-second video posted on the video-hosting site BitChute on Jan. 8, titled KILL YOUR SENATORS, in which Mr. Hunt urged others to join him in an armed insurrection around President Bidens inauguration. That same day, in a post on the social media website Parler, he urged others to bring your guns on Inauguration Day.

Mr. Hunt testified at trial in his own defense, an unusual move in criminal trials because it exposes the defendant to cross-examination and charges of perjury. He said he was not attempting to intimidate members of Congress, and that his statements had no intended audience. I was letting off steam and it was more online blathering than anything, he said.

Mr. Hunt said he had spent two years listening to heated political rhetoric from Republicans and Democrats, and getting wrapped up in it. It felt like he was in the stands of a football stadium, he said, with everybody drinking beer, and then all of a sudden I felt like the lights in the stadium went out and the spotlights all came on me.

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Man Who Threatened Democrats Online Sentenced to 19 Months in Prison - The New York Times