A Florida man has pleaded guilty in connection with threatening to kill a Supreme Court justice.
The guilty plea from 43-year-old Neal Brij Sidhwaney of Fernandina Beach stemmed from a call he made to a Supreme Court justice in July, the Justice Department said in a news release Monday.
He faces up to five years in federal prison on one count of transmitting an interstate threat. A sentencing date has not yet been set.
Prosecutors said that Sidhwaney identified himself by name in an expletive-infused voicemail and repeatedly threatened to kill the Supreme Court justice, who is not named in court documents.
Sidhwaney warned that if the justice alerted deputy U.S. Marshals, he would talk to them and “come kill you anyway,” according to court documents, which did not indicate what prompted Sidhwaney to make the threat.
Weeks after his arrest in August, U.S. Magistrate Judge Monte C. Richardson ordered a competency hearing for Sidhwaney. According to a copy of his forensic psychological evaluation included in court documents, Sidhwaney denied having psychotic symptoms but “delusional thought processes became evident” during the examination.
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Following the examination, Sidhwaney was found to meet the minimum standards required to stand trial. He pleaded guilty last week in Jacksonville, according to documents made public Monday.
A federal defender representing Sidhwaney did not immediately respond to a request for comment Monday night.
President Joe Biden last year signed into law legislation providing security to family members of Supreme Court justices amid growing concerns over security following the reversal of Roe v. Wade.
That legislation came after a California man was arrested after allegedly telling police he came to the Washington, D.C.-area to kill Justice Brett Kavanaugh and then himself. The man, Nicholas John Roske, has pleaded not guilty to one count of attempting to assassinate a Supreme Court justice.
