Sept. 27 (UPI) — William Braddock, a one-time Republican congressional candidate in Florida, is facing federal charges of issuing a death threat against his fellow GOP opponent in 2021, prosecutors announced Friday.
Braddock, 41, of St. Petersburg, Fla., was charged with one count of interstate transmission of a true threat to injure another person during an initial court appearance in Los Angeles, according to the Department of Justice.
Braddock in 2021 was running in a crowded Republican primary field to succeed former Democratic Rep. Charlie Crist in Florida’s 13th Congressional District, which includes St. Petersburg and Clearwater, Fla., when the alleged death threat was made.
Braddock dropped out of the race after a recording of him threatening fellow Republican candidate Anna Paulina Luna was leaked to the Washington political news site Politico. Luna and a supporter, right-wing activist Erin Olszewski, sought and obtained a restraining order against Braddock in June 2021.
In the recording, Braddock is heard threatening, in part, to “call up my Russian-Ukrainian hit squad” and make Luna disappear. She ultimately won the 2022 election to replace Crist.
St. Petersburg Police and Pinellas County, Fla., officials declined to file charges against the GOP candidate, but federal prosecutors did so as part of the Justice Department’s Election Threats Task Force, established by Attorney General Merrick Garland to “ensure that all election workers — whether elected, appointed, or volunteer — are able to do their jobs free from threats and intimidation.”
DOJ officials said Braddock at some point left the country and last year was found to be illegally residing in the Philippines. He was “recently deported” from that nation back to the United States, they said.
The St. Petersburg Police Department is now assisting the FBI Tampa Field Office in investigating the case, according to federal officials.
