A Texas woman has been arrested and charged with threatening U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, who is presiding over former President Donald Trump’s election case.
Abigail Jo Shry, 43, is charged with transmitting a threat to injure a person via interstate commerce, reads an affidavit signed by Joshua Henry, a special agent with the Federal Protective Service, a division of the Department of Homeland Security.
The affidavit, first reported Wednesday by Bloomberg Law, was filed in federal court last week and claims Shry called the federal judge’s chambers and left a “threatening voicemail message.”
“Hey, you stupid slave,” said Shry, who also called Chutkan the N-word, according to the affidavit. “You are in our sights, we want to kill you. If Trump doesn’t get elected in 2024, we are coming to kill you, so tread lightly, b*tch.”
She continued: “You will be targeted personally, publicly, your family, all of it,” according to the affidavit.
The suspect also “made a direct threat to kill” Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee of Texas, in addition to members of the LGBTQ community and unnamed Democrats, the affidavit further states.
Shry has admitted to leaving the voicemail, according to the affidavit, but said she had no plans to travel to Washington to carry out her threats.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Sam S. Sheldon of the Southern District of Texas ordered authorities to detain Shry following the voicemail, which was obtained by authorities. She was detained Wednesday.
Meanwhile, security personnel have been called to surround Chutkan, who is an appointee of former President Barack Obama.
Born in Jamaica in 1962, Chutkan was awarded a Bachelor of Arts degree in from George Washington University and attended the University of Pennsylvania Law School, where she was an associate editor of the University of Pennsylvania Law Review. She earned a Juris Doctor from the school in 1987. Since then, she was in private practice at the Hogan & Hartson (now Hogan Lovells) law firm and has worked for the law firm of Donovan, Leisure, Rogovin, Huge & Schiller.
Chutkan would later become a partner at the law firm of Boies, Schiller & Flexner, where she focused on complex civil litigation and antitrust class action cases.
This story is developing.
