TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WCTV) – A Tallahassee man faces up to 25 years in prison after threatening the life of President Donald Trump, former U.S. Representative Eric Swalwell and Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell, the U.S. Attorney’s Office announced in a Tuesday press release.
Diego Villavicencio, 36, pleaded guilty to two counts of sending interstate threats, one count of impeding or retaliating against a federal official and one count of threats against the president, per the attorney’s office.
According to court documents, Villavicencio posted the threats on social media platforms over the course of multiple months.
On Sept. 15, 2025, the U.S. Attorney’s Office says he posted an image on his X account of “a red sight and crosshairs pointed at Powell’s head, and the text ‘Jerome. Powell will be shot and killed September 23” (sic), and a second post depicting the same image and the text “Jerome is next.”’
A day later, he posted again on his X account, directing his threats toward Swalwell under the former representative’s own posts.
“I’ll kill you and your family and you won’t do anything about it. Corruption listens to bullets,” he said in the comment.
Villavicencio then messaged Swalwell directly, writing, “You are going to be shot and killed on September 24.”
About four months later, on Jan. 25, 2026, Villavicencio responded to a post on 4chan, an anonymous imageboard website, and posted that he would “be driving to Mar-a-Lago “to take a couple of shots at trump and some of the other corrupt plutocrats[.]”
Villavicencio is scheduled to be sentenced on July 20 in Tallahassee.
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