{"id":250291,"date":"2026-04-28T22:38:12","date_gmt":"2026-04-28T22:38:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/250291\/"},"modified":"2026-04-28T22:38:12","modified_gmt":"2026-04-28T22:38:12","slug":"tallahassee-man-pleads-guilty-after-threatening-trump-other-political-figures","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/250291\/","title":{"rendered":"Tallahassee man pleads guilty after threatening Trump, other political figures"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"text | article-text\">TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WCTV) &#8211; 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\u2019s Office announced in a Tuesday press release. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.wctv.tv\/2026\/03\/12\/tallahassee-man-indicted-allegedly-threatening-trump-other-government-officials\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.wctv.tv\/2026\/03\/12\/tallahassee-man-indicted-allegedly-threatening-trump-other-government-officials\/\">Diego Villavicencio, 36<\/a>, 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\u2019s office. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">According to court documents, Villavicencio posted the threats on social media platforms over the course of multiple months. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">On Sept. 15, 2025, the U.S. Attorney\u2019s Office says he posted an image on his X account of \u201ca red sight and crosshairs pointed at Powell\u2019s head, and the text \u2018Jerome. Powell will be shot and killed September 23\u201d (sic), and a second post depicting the same image and the text \u201cJerome is next.\u201d&#8217;<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">A day later, he posted again on his X account, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wctv.tv\/2026\/04\/13\/house-ethics-panel-opens-investigation-into-sexual-misconduct-allegations-against-rep-swalwell\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.wctv.tv\/2026\/04\/13\/house-ethics-panel-opens-investigation-into-sexual-misconduct-allegations-against-rep-swalwell\/\">directing his threats toward Swalwell<\/a> under the former representative\u2019s own posts. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">\u201cI\u2019ll kill you and your family and you won\u2019t do anything about it. Corruption listens to bullets,\u201d he said in the comment. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Villavicencio then messaged Swalwell directly, writing, \u201cYou are going to be shot and killed on September 24.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">About four months later, on Jan. 25, 2026, Villavicencio responded to a post on 4chan, an anonymous imageboard website, and posted that he would \u201cbe driving to Mar-a-Lago \u201cto take a couple of shots at trump and some of the other corrupt plutocrats[.]\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Villavicencio is scheduled to be sentenced on July 20 in Tallahassee. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">To keep up with the latest news as it develops, follow WCTV on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/WCTV.tv\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Facebook<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/wctvnews\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Instagram<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/@WCTVEyewitnessNews\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">YouTube<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/nextdoor.com\/page\/wctv\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/nextdoor.com\/page\/wctv\/\" target=\"_blank\">Nextdoor<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/nextdoor.com\/page\/wctv\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/nextdoor.com\/page\/wctv\/\" target=\"_blank\"> <\/a>and <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/WCTV\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">X<\/a> (<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/WCTV\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Twitter<\/a>).<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Have a news tip or see an error? <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wctv.tv\/2026\/04\/28\/tallahassee-man-pleads-guilty-after-threatening-trump-other-political-figures\/mailto:news@wctv.tv?subject=Correction%20Needed\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Write to us here<\/a>. Please include the article\u2019s headline in your message.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Be the first to see all the biggest headlines by downloading the WCTV News app. Click <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wctv.tv\/2024\/12\/18\/download-free-wctv-mobile-streaming-apps-today\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a> to get started.<\/p>\n<p>Copyright 2026 WCTV. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><script async src=\"\/\/www.instagram.com\/embed.js\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WCTV) &#8211; A Tallahassee man faces up to 25 years in prison after threatening the life&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":250292,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[692,68923,1721,8219,265,109567,88502,232,234,233,5113,2684,32279],"class_list":["post-250291","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tallahassee","tag-arrest","tag-assassination","tag-capital-city","tag-court","tag-crime","tag-eric-stalwell","tag-jerome-powell","tag-tallahassee","tag-tallahassee-headlines","tag-tallahassee-news","tag-threats","tag-trump","tag-u-s-attorneys-office"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/250291","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=250291"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/250291\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/250292"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=250291"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=250291"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=250291"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}