Men arrested for death threats against Rep. George Santos & “transgender” politician

Two different men with anti-LGBTQ+ beliefs have been charged for issuing death threats against two different U.S. congressmembers: Rep. George Santos (R-NY) and an unnamed Texas House member.

In the Santos case, a gay rights activist named Frank Stanzione called Santos’s main telephone line at 12:24 a.m. on January 29, 2023, and left a voice message referring to Santos as a “fat f**king piece of s**t f**got.”

Related:

Trans teacher gets death threats after Fox News articles about their LGBTQ+ books

“We’ll see you burn in hell,” the bombing threat told the teacher and their staff.

“You better watch your mother f**king back because I’m gonna bash your mother f**king f**got head in with a bat until your brains are splattered across the f**king wall,” Stanzione’s message said. “You lying, disgusting, disgraceful, motherf**king f**got…. piece of s**t. You’re gonna get f**king murdered you god**mn lying piece of garbage. Watch your back you fat, ugly, piece of s**t. You and your husband are dead.”

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Santos reported the threat to U.S. Capitol Police Threat Assessment Section, and investigators found that the call originated from near Boynton Beach, Florida. When Stanzione was arrested for making threats to do bodily harm, he admitted to leaving the message and said he didn’t want Santos “in his (gay) community,” court documents state.

Stanzione has asked for the charges against him to be dismissed, stating that others who have committed similar alleged acts haven’t been prosecuted for them. If convicted, he could face five years in prison.

In the second case, the FBI arrested Michael David Fox, a New Mexican man who threatened to kill a U.S. congresswoman from Texas who he believed was secretly a Satanic transgender pedophile.

At 9:04 p.m. on May 18, 2023, Fox called the office of an unnamed U.S. House representative from Houston, Texas.

“Hey [congresswoman], you’re a man. It’s official. You’re literally a tr**ny and a pedophile, and I’m going to put a bullet in your f**king face,” Fox’s voice message said. “You mother f**king Satanic c**k-sucking son of a whore. You understand me you f**ker?”

When approached by FBI agents on May 26, Fox admitted to leaving the message and said that he wasn’t under the influence of drugs when he left them. He also said that he was a follower of QAnon, a right-wing conspiracy theory movement that has accused LGBTQ+ people and their allies of sexually abusing and torturing children. Early QAnon conspiracy #Pizzagate theorists falsely claimed that a gay-owned Washington D.C. pizzeria had imprisoned sex-trafficked children in its non-existent basement — the claim led an armed individual to enter the business demanding to see its basement.

“Fox explained these movements believe all over the world there were transgender individuals running governments, kingdoms, and corporations,” court documents stated. “Fox explained that he had run [the congresswoman’s] skull features through forensic analysis and determined that [she] was born male and is now transgender.”

The Court Watch newsletter noted that these two cases haven’t been widely discussed in public, leaving citizens and policymakers “missing out on having data-driven discussions on how to address threats by way of new legislation, increased resources, or any other possible approach.”

The newsletter also noted that such cases tend to inspire one political side to point to them as proof that “the other political side is violently unhinged. And then the sides switch spots the following week when the next person targeted for a threat is in the other party,” Court Watch wrote.

“If one wants to find an example of their political opponents’ supporters threatening violence, there is always an example in the criminal justice system to be found for every political persuasion under the sun. Which is why having a full accounting of the number of federal cases is important. Until then, the online echo chambers will continue whataboutism,” the newsletter added.