A Tallahassee man has pleaded guilty to making a series of violent threats online against the president, a former member of Congress and other federal officials, federal prosecutors announced Tuesday.
Diego M. 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, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Florida.
Court documents show Villavicencio made multiple online threats over several months directed at President Donald J. Trump, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell and U.S. Rep. Eric Swalwell.
On Sept. 15, 2025, Villavicencio posted threats on his X account aimed at Powell, including a post depicting an image of red crosshairs centered on Powell’s head with text stating, “Jerome. Powell will be shot and killed September 23,” according to court records. A second post used the same image and stated, “Jerome is next.”
The following day, Villavicencio posted threats directed at a member of Congress. Responding publicly to a post by Swalwell, he wrote, “I’ll kill you and your family and you won’t do anything about it. Corruption listens to bullets,” court documents state. Villavicencio then sent the member a direct message saying, “You are going to be shot and killed on September 24.”
Swalwell has since resigned from Congress, where he faced potential expulsion after several women accused him of sexual assault and misconduct.
On Jan. 25, 2026, Villavicencio also posted on the online platform 4chan that he would be driving to Mar‑a‑Lago “to take a couple of shots at trump and some of the other corrupt plutocrats,” according to court filings.
U.S. Attorney John P. Heekin said the office takes threats of violence against public officials seriously and will aggressively prosecute such cases.
“As the terrifying events at the White House Correspondents Dinner this past weekend showed, threats of violence can quickly escalate to acts of violence by deranged individuals,” he said in a prepared statement. “Criminal threats directed at public officials are becoming alarmingly more common, and this must stop now. We have zero-tolerance for such criminality in the Northern District of Florida and will seek maximum punishments to keep our public officials safe.”
Villavicencio faces up to 25 years in federal prison. Sentencing is scheduled for July 20, 2026, at 10 a.m. at the United States Courthouse in Tallahassee before Chief U.S. District Judge Allen C. Winsor.
The case was investigated jointly by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the U.S. Capitol Police, the Federal Reserve Board Protective Service and the U.S. Secret Service. It is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Eric W. Welch.
This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: Tallahassee man threatened Trump, lawmaker and Fed chair