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Tulsa man sentenced to 30 months for threatening to kill President Biden

Tulsa County Jail mugshot of John Jacobs Ahrens, June 22, 2021

TULSA, Okla. — A Tulsa man was sentenced Monday in federal court for sending threatening emails to KOTV Channel 6 directed at President Joseph Biden, unnamed members of the Congress and their families.

John Jacobs Ahrens, 58, was sentenced to 30 months in prison followed by 3 years of supervised release. In 2021, Ahrens pleaded guilty to one count of threat against the President of the United States and two counts of interstate communication with a threat to injure.

“John Ahrens is the second defendant to appear in the Northern District of Oklahoma in the last week for threatening public officials and their families. The U.S. Attorney’s Office is committed to protecting an individual’s right to free speech, but those protections do not extend to threats of violence,” said U.S. Attorney Clint Johnson. “Ahrens’ 30 month sentence demonstrates that federal prosecutors and our law enforcement partners will hold accountable individuals who make such violent statements.”

According to Department of Justice, an executive producer from the station contacted the FBI’s National Threat Operations Center to report the threatening emails dated between May and June 2021.

In his messages, Ahrens demanded money, and if it wasn’t sent, he wrote that he would kill the President, members of Congress, and their families.

On May 10, 2021, Ahrens sent a message stating, “Please go to my Facebook page and read what I sent to the men of the United States Congress. They have less than 48 hours to hand over my money or their children will start dying all over the country. I’m going to kill their children using the same law as the Government used to force our families on to the Trail of Tears.”

Ahrens followed it up the same day with an email stating, “I tried to contact you earlier but the Feds shut me down they got a little uptight because I informed the men of the United States Congress if they didn’t hand my money over in less than 48 hours. I will have their children killed. If that doesn’t get the message across. Then I start on their women…”

In his June 10 email, Ahrens stated, “America is going to get to see a sitting President get his head blown off right in front of them… A kill contract went out on one Joseph Biden, President of the United States of America. I’m the one that put it there and if he doesn’t submit to the law, America is going to watch him die right in front of them.”

In a June 17 message, he wrote “You have until Monday morning 8:00 am sharp to hand a check over to the State of Oklahoma, the Muscogee Nation and my family in accordance with a signed agreement as set forth in the Treaty of 1866.”

Ahrens was arrested at his Tulsa residence on June 18, 2021, by agents of the FBI and Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation and task force officers with the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force.

The U.S. Secret Service, FBI, and Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation (OSBI) conducted the investigation. Assistant U.S. Attorney Joel-lyn A. McCormick prosecuted the case.



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