Marine veteran gets 38 months for death threats to president

Rene Ortiz maintains that he never meant the threats seriously, having had no meaningful way to carry them out, and simply sought attention to the dozens of lawsuits he had filed earlier.PHOENIX (CN) — A Marine veteran who threatened to kill President Donald Trump and 2024 nominee Kamala Harris received 38 months in prison on Tuesday.Rene Ortiz delivered documents to federal courthouses in Phoenix and Tucson in November 2024 in which he detailed his desire to “execute the newly elected POTUS by firing an M-16A2 service rifle with a magazine of 6 rounds.” Ortiz explained in the filings that both candidates had failed to uphold the rule of law, and requested a hearing with government leadership to discuss its failings.“Public officials should not be subject to these threats,” U.S. District Judge Stephen M. McNamee in a Phoenix courtroom Tuesday morning. “And we all are. All the time. And you have to learn to live with that. But they become real too many times.”Ortiz made the threats just four months after 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks shot Trump in the ear in a failed assassination attempt.Ortiz’s defense attorneys said at trial that the 56-year-old, who lives with schizoaffective disorder, borderline personality disorder and PTSD, never posed an actual threat because he owns no firearms and had no method to carry out the actions he described in the documents.Instead, his defense team said he simply sought attention after multiple previous lawsuits he had filed against the government were swiftly dismissed. Expert witnesses said Ortiz “was not entirely grounded in reality.”“Mr. Ortiz is someone who at one point in their life wrote a blank check made payable to the United States of America for an amount up to and including their life,” federal public defender Success V. Carter told McNamee. “His mental illness remains the same. The need for continued mental health treatment remains the same.”Carter asked that McNamee, a George H. W. Bush appointee, sentence Ortiz only to probation, raising concerns that his retirement and disability checks from the Veterans’ Affairs office will stop once he’s committed to prison.“A custodial sentence would completely destroy his family as they rely on Mr. Ortiz for financial stability,” Carter said.Federal prosecutor Abbie Broughton said those consequences, while sympathetic, are collateral of Ortiz’ choices and his criminal conduct.McNamee agreed.“Just because you gave service and you’re a Marine, that is not a free pass for the rest of your life,” the judge said. “That’s what Mr. Ortiz did by making these threats. It wasn’t a mistake, it wasn’t inadvertent. He knew what he was doing.”Ortiz was convicted in June on two counts of making threats against the president and successor to the presidency, and one count of making threats against the former president.At trial, Ortiz’s family testified that they worried for his mental health and tried to keep him out of trouble.“His children, they begged him,” McNamee went on. “They pleaded with him. ‘Don’t do this.’ It was heart wrenching to listen to that testimony.”Broughton said Ortiz’s past service isn’t only a mitigating factor. While thanking him for his service, she noted that Ortiz said in the documents that he would use a service rifle and “touted his expertise in marksmanship.”She added that while Ortiz suffers from mental illness, he still knew exactly what he was doing when he made the threats.“There is no indication that these actions were primarily a result of his mental health,” she said. “He threw these words out there with the intention of making a threat because he wanted to be taken seriously.”Ortiz initially declined to speak on his own behalf, on advice from counsel given that he plans to appeal the sentence. After McNamee offered a second time, he said: “Just have mercy on me. That’s all.”Prosecutors recommended Ortiz be given 36 months in prison. McNamee added two months, giving him the opportunity to earn time off for good conduct.Ortiz requested that he be housed in or near Arizona. McNamee said he’d consider it, but will prioritize whichever facility has the most resources available to treat his mental health issues and alcohol addiction.The threats Ortiz made in November 2024 were not the first ones. After he filed dozens of lawsuits challenging his termination from his job at the VA, making a litany of other legal arguments his team admitted didn’t make any sense, U.S. Marshals investigated threats Ortiz made to the central California U.S. attorney’s office two months prior.Also in November 2024, Ortiz left a voicemail with the staff of U.S. District Judges Dominic Lanza and James Teilborg, who had both dismissed lawsuits Ortiz filed. Marshals decided not to arrest Ortiz at the time, concluding that he likely suffered from mental health issues.Subscribe to our free newslettersOur weekly newsletter Closing Arguments offers the latest about ongoing trials, major litigation and rulings in courthouses around the U.S. and the world, while the monthly Under the Lights dishes the legal dirt from Hollywood, sports, Big Tech and the arts.Additional Reads