A retired California lobbyist was in federal custody on Monday, accused of shooting at an ABC affiliate in Sacramento last week, and prosecutors said that investigators had found a note in his vehicle that criticized the Trump administration’s handling of the case against Jeffrey Epstein.
The lobbyist, Anibal Hernandez Santana, 64, of Sacramento, was formally charged Monday afternoon in U.S. District Court with possessing a firearm within a school zone, discharging a firearm within a school zone and interfering with a licensed broadcaster.
The charges, which carry maximum penalties of more than $250,000 in fines and up to six years in prison, were in addition to more serious state charges of assault with a deadly weapon, shooting into an occupied building and negligent discharge of a firearm in connection with the incident on Friday. No clear motive was specified by authorities.
Mr. Hernandez Santana briefly appeared on Monday in a Sacramento federal courtroom, where a detention hearing was scheduled for Thursday. He is ineligible for release on bail on the federal charges, according to a jail record.
In a statement after the hearing, his lawyer contended that the case had no place in federal court and was being brought by the Trump administration for political reasons.
Mr. Hernandez Santana had worked for more than 20 years as a legislative advocate for health care, tribal and labor interests, as well as other organizations. He was free on bond on Saturday when he was arrested again, this time by F.B.I. agents outside his apartment, according to the federal complaint.
In between the arrests, prosecutors said, investigators found the handwritten note in his Nissan sport utility vehicle.
“For hiding Epstein & ignoring red flags,” the note said, according to prosecutors, apparently referring to the financier and former friend of the president who was found hanged in a jail cell in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges. The note also appeared to refer to two top F.B.I. officials, Kash Patel and Dan Bongino; Attorney General Pam Bondi; and Charlie Kirk, the right-wing political activist who was assassinated the prior week.
“Do not support Patel, Bongino, & AG Pam Bondie,” the note added. “They’re next. — C.K. from above.”
The Sacramento police arrested Mr. Hernandez Santana on Friday after the local ABC affiliate, KXTV, reported that a shooter had fired at least three rounds into its building around 1:30 p.m. No one was injured, but after surveillance footage and license plate readers matched his white vehicle with one spotted at the scene, the local authorities searched his home.
There, court documents say, investigators discovered a gun and a satchel matching those used by the shooter, along with a whiteboard planner on a refrigerator with a handwritten reminder, for that Friday, to “Do the Next Scary Thing.”
Mr. Hernandez Santana posted bail on the state charges and returned home, according to his lawyer, Mark Reichel, only to be surprised by federal agents hours later.
“He and I were working on his case over the telephone,” Mr. Reichel said in an interview. “He went outside to go get a Coke or something and got taken back into custody by the F.B.I.”
Federal officials said that Mr. Hernandez Santana had stood on a sidewalk around the block from the TV station, fired once into the air “in the direction of the station,” then drove to the front of the station and fired three times into the building’s lobby. The initial shot, they said, was fired from a spot that was within 1,000 feet of a school.
Mr. Reichel said it was unclear why the local case had necessitated federal involvement. Gun charges of the sort filed in the case are normally handled at the state level, he said, and the third charge is a federal misdemeanor. He added that the government had not yet shared any evidence, including the note.
But, he said, the shooting at the television station occurred in the midst of a crackdown on the news media by the Trump administration in the wake of Mr. Kirk’s highly publicized murder.
Days earlier, Jimmy Kimmel, the ABC late night host, was suspended from the airwaves after criticizing the Trump administration for seeking to distance itself from the person accused of killing Mr. Kirk.
One day before the shooting, protesters held a demonstration outside KXTV’s offices in Sacramento. The station is not owned by Sinclair or Nexstar, the two owners of television affiliates that had said they would take Mr. Kimmel’s show off the air before ABC temporarily halted its production. But KXTV is owned by Tegna, a separate company that Nexstar is seeking to purchase in a deal that would require approval by the Federal Communications Commission.
Mr. Kimmel’s suspension is to end on Tuesday, ABC officials said on Monday.
Mr. Hernandez Santana is a Puerto Rico-born Army veteran with a law degree from the University of California, Hastings College of the Law, now known as University of California Law San Francisco, according to Mr. Reichel.
Mr. Hernandez Santana has been retired since 2022, according to his social media profile. In a lawsuit filed in 2019 against a former employer for wrongful termination, he indicated that he cared for a young disabled son. His social media accounts had openly expressed opposition to the Trump administration, according to Mr. Reichel.
“This was a state court crime as originally charged, but in typical Trump D.O.J. fashion, they have brought it to federal court because they don’t like the fact that he does not support the MAGA party,” Mr. Reichel said. “It’s pretty obvious that’s what is happening.”
According to Kyle Roberts, a detective with the Sacramento Police Department currently assigned to the F.B.I. Joint Terrorism Task Force, the note in the S.U.V. was not found until after Mr. Hernandez Santana posted bail on Saturday.
A spokeswoman for the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of California declined to comment on the timing or the reason for federal involvement.
Mr. Hernandez Santana is now expected to appear in Sacramento Superior Court on the state charges on Thursday, the same day as his federal detention hearing.