{"id":2586,"date":"2025-10-13T23:47:06","date_gmt":"2025-10-13T23:47:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/2586\/"},"modified":"2025-10-13T23:47:06","modified_gmt":"2025-10-13T23:47:06","slug":"san-diego-man-allegedly-sent-threat-letter-to-benny-johnson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/2586\/","title":{"rendered":"San Diego man allegedly sent threat letter to Benny Johnson"},"content":{"rendered":"

A San Diego man was arrested last week and is expected to face a federal criminal charge in Florida for allegedly mailing a threatening letter to Benny Johnson, a conservative social media influencer with close connections to the White House<\/a>, according to the Department of Justice and a federal search warrant affidavit.<\/p>\n

George Russell Isbell Jr., 69, allegedly mailed the letter last month to Johnson\u2019s home in Tampa, Fla. The letter, which was sent in the days following the Sept. 10 slaying of Charlie Kirk, another conservative media personality and friend of Johnson\u2019s, alluded to various violent and deadly acts its author would \u201clove to see,\u201d though the letter\u2019s author did not threaten to personally carry out those acts.<\/p>\n

\u201cDon\u2019t worry-won\u2019t be me-I\u2019m not giving up my freedoms for worm (expletive) like you,\u201d the author wrote.<\/p>\n

U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi called Isbell a \u201ccoward hiding behind a keyboard\u201d in a statement and said his arrest \u201cwill serve as a reminder to many \u2014 do not do this, we will find you and bring you to justice.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a search warrant affidavit for Isbell\u2019s San Diego home, an FBI agent wrote that a federal criminal complaint was filed against him on Oct. 3 in U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida, and a judge issued a warrant for his arrest that same day.<\/p>\n

After FBI agents spent two days surveilling Isbell at his home, a San Diego police officer arrested him on the warrant during an Oct. 7 traffic stop. He allegedly admitted in a post-arrest interview with the FBI that he mailed the letter to Johnson. He also allegedly gave investigators permission to enter his home and seize a .357 Magnum handgun that he said he kept for protection, but which he said did not have bullets.<\/p>\n

Isbell is expected to be charged with one count of mailing threatening communications, which carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison. As of Monday,\u00a0the Florida case referenced in the warrant remained sealed.<\/p>\n

According to that same search warrant, the FBI is also investigating Isbell for potentially threatening emails he allegedly sent in February 2021 to Republican state lawmakers in Louisiana after they censured one of their state\u2019s Republican senators for voting to convict President Donald Trump in his second impeachment trial.<\/p>\n

According to the warrant, Louisiana State Police launched an investigation in 2021 that identified Isbell as the sender of the email. In a footnote of the warrant, the FBI agent wrote that investigators are now working to determine if Isbell \u201csent any other threatening email communications that may qualify as a \u2018true threat\u2019\u201d under federal law.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A San Diego man was arrested last week and is expected to face a federal criminal charge in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2587,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[7,1312,138,181,23,100,74,84,76,75,1696],"class_list":{"0":"post-2586","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-diego","8":"tag-california","9":"tag-courts","10":"tag-crime-and-public-safety","11":"tag-latest-headlines","12":"tag-local-news","13":"tag-news","14":"tag-san-diego","15":"tag-san-diego-county","16":"tag-san-diego-headlines","17":"tag-san-diego-news","18":"tag-top-stories-sdut"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2586","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2586"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2586\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2587"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2586"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2586"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2586"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}