TALLAHASSEE, Florida — State officials said a Texas man was arrested for making death threats against Jewish conservative media figures who live in Florida.
State Attorney General James Uthmeier announced on X that the Office of Statewide Prosecutor was notified last week of the threats. He added that, after an investigation, authorities got an arrest warrant and have charged Nicholas Ray of Spring, Texas, with extortion, written threats to kill and unlawful use of a two-way communication device.
Laura Loomer, the far-right activist and ally of President Donald Trump, announced on social media Monday evening that she was one of those targeted with death threats and had reported them to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. In her post, she said conservative commentator Josh Hammer and Seth Dillon of The Babylon Bee were also threatened.
Loomer, in her post, said she became a target because the suspect “was radicalized by the false accusations that I am a foreign agent, and then he proceeded to make a serious and credible threat against my life.”
Both Dillon and Hammer also went online to thank Uthmeier and the attorney general’s office for the arrest.
“I don’t recommend threatening Florida residents,” Dillon posted on X, adding “my family is sincerely grateful.”
A Florida Department of Law Enforcement probable cause arrest affidavit details a lengthy list of antisemitic threats posted online in October by the username @zionistarescum that included posts such as “you’re gonna get killed soon buddy. It’s coming, traitors get hung.” Another one said that Americans “will take turns beating your lifeless body with a pinata stick you lifeless traitor.” In the posts, various people were accused of being Israeli agents.
FDLE agents requested information from X, AT&T and Charter Communications and used that to locate Ray.
In their X post, Uthmeier’s office said Ray, 28, had been placed in custody and would be extradited to Florida. Ray was listed Tuesday morning on the Montgomery County jail roster. It was not immediately clear from those records if he had an attorney.
This latest arrest comes two weeks after Attorney General Pam Bondi announced in Tampa that the Justice Department filed criminal charges against a California man making for “vicious” threats against conservative podcaster Benny Johnson.
Johnson received a letter threatening that he should be “exterminated” and strangled by an American flag, authorities said. The letter, traced by federal and state law enforcement in Florida, where Johnson resides, allegedly asked if the influencer in Trump’s orbit was “planning any public engagements” because they would “Love to see your head explode and your blood stain the concrete red.”
The man charged with writing the letter, George Russell Isbell Jr., 69 of San Diego, faces a maximum penalty of five years in prison.
Bondi, appearing alongside Johnson in Tampa earlier this month, described Isbell as “a coward hiding behind a keyboard.”
“If you think you can do something like this, we don’t care if you’re across the country in California, we will find you, we will arrest you, we will extradite you, and we will bring you to justice,” Bondi said. “We cannot allow this political violence to continue any longer.”
Andrew Atterbury contributed to this report.