St. Paul Man Federally Charged After Threatening Voicemail Left To U.S. Representative
MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) -- A 32-year-old St. Paul man has been federally charged for allegedly placing a threatening voicemail to an U.S. Representative.
According to the complaint, Jason Robert Karimi was taken into federal custody Thursday and has made an appearance before Magistrate Judge David T. Schultz in U.S. District Court.
The voicemail was left on the office telephone of the U.S. Representative on Jan. 11. According to the complaint, among the threats Karimi delivered were "I want you to be as scared as possible," "We're going to f*** you up and we are going to cause you pain in every way possible," and "We're going to end all political power you have, make it so you can't even walk in anything but a wheelchair."
Agents from the FBI used cell phone records to trace the call back to Karimi. When agents arrived at his residence and asked if he knew why they were there, he asked "Is it about the voicemails?"
Karimi said that he was an activist for the marijuana industry and that he hopes to eventually lobby to the U.S. Government. He told agents that in the past he has used what he called "political threatening" to "get people's attention and illicit a response. He said once he threatened a lawyer by telling him that he would "rip out his son's guts" and feed them to the lawyer's son.
He said he left the voicemail to cause "political pain" to the representative's career, the complaint says.
He faces a federal charge of interstate communication with a threat.
The voicemail was left just days after the U.S. Capitol was stormed by a mob of angry Trump supporters.
