{"id":153565,"date":"2026-03-31T20:02:11","date_gmt":"2026-03-31T20:02:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/153565\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T20:02:11","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T20:02:11","slug":"pa-man-gets-prison-time-for-threatening-erie-poll-worker","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/153565\/","title":{"rendered":"PA man gets prison time for threatening Erie poll worker"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">(WJET\/WFXP)\u2013 The Pennsylvania man convicted of sending death threats to an Erie area poll worker, including threats to skin them alive, received his sentence in federal court Tuesday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">John Pollard, 63, of Philadelphia, was sentenced to 10 months in prison followed by a year of supervised release, with prosecutors noting that Judge Cathy Bissoon denied the request from Pollard\u2019s team for probation.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\"><a class=\"link \" href=\"https:\/\/www.yourerie.com\/news\/local-news\/pa-man-accused-of-threatening-to-kill-skin-erie-poll-worker-pleads-guilty\/?ipid=promo-link-block1\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:PA man accused of threatening to kill, skin Erie poll worker pleads guilty;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;PA man accused of threatening to kill, skin Erie poll worker pleads guilty&quot;}\"> PA man accused of threatening to kill, skin Erie poll worker pleads guilty <\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Pollard pleaded guilty in December 2025 to one count of making interstate threats after a text exchange between the two quickly turned violent.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The US Attorney\u2019s Office for the Western District of PA said Pollard first started texting the victim on September 6, 2024, after they posted about looking for volunteers in the area as part of their role as a Regional Election Integrity Director.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The US Attorney\u2019s Office said Pollard sent the following threats:<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">\u201cI will KILL YOU IF YOU DON\u2019T ANSWER ME!\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">\u201cYour days are numbered, B****!\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">\u201cGONNA F***ING FIND YOU AND SKIN YOU ALIVE AND USE YOUR SKIN FOR F***ING TOILET PAPER, YOU F*****G KKK**T!\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\"><a class=\"link \" href=\"https:\/\/www.yourerie.com\/news\/local-news\/sci-cambridge-co-accused-of-sexually-assaulting-inmate-three-times\/?ipid=promo-link-block2\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:SCI Cambridge CO accused of sexually assaulting inmate three times;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;SCI Cambridge CO accused of sexually assaulting inmate three times&quot;}\"> SCI Cambridge CO accused of sexually assaulting inmate three times <\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">\u201cThis prosecution, and the Court\u2019s sentence of incarceration in the Bureau of Prisons, sends a clear and unmistakable message that threats against election workers and other public servants will be met with swift, certain, and just punishment,\u201d said United States Attorney Rivetti. \u201cOur office and our law enforcement partners remain committed to protecting free and fair elections.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">As part of rejecting the defense\u2019s request for probation, Bissoon stressed the reality of political violence and that death threats would not be tolerated, even with a lack of a criminal record.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Copyright 2026 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.yourerie.com\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WJET\/WFXP\/YourErie.com.;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WJET\/WFXP\/YourErie.com.&quot;}\" class=\"link \"> For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WJET\/WFXP\/YourErie.com. <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"(WJET\/WFXP)\u2013 The Pennsylvania man convicted of sending death threats to an Erie area poll worker, including threats to&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":153566,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[69765,69764,136,138,137,69763,63536],"class_list":["post-153565","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-erie","tag-cathy-bissoon","tag-death-threats","tag-erie","tag-erie-headlines","tag-erie-news","tag-john-pollard","tag-supervised-release"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153565","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=153565"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153565\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/153566"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=153565"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=153565"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=153565"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}