Alabama man charged with threatening DA Fani Willis over Trump prosecution

Oct. 31 (UPI) -- A federal grand jury in Atlanta has indicted a 59-year-old man on allegations that he sent Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis threatening messages over her prosecution of former President Donald Trump.

Arthur Ray Hanson of Huntsville, Ala., was indicted Wednesday on charges of transmitting interstate threats, the Justice Department said in a press release Monday.

The indictment states Hanson called the Fulton County customer services line twice on Aug. 6 and left voice mails threatening violence against Willis and Fulton County Sheriff Patrick Labat.

"Watch it when you're going to the car at night, when you're going into your house, watch everywhere that your going," he told Willis in the message, according to an excerpt of the recording quoted by the Justice Department in its release.

"I would be very afraid if I were you because you can't be around people all the time that are going to protect you."

Prosecutors said that he told Willis that her safety was in jeopardy if she went ahead with filing a fourth indictment against Trump, which she would do about a week after receiving the call.

"When you charge Trump on that fourth indictment, anytime you're alone, be looking over your shoulder," he is accused of having said in the voicemail.

He is also accused of leaving a threatening message for Labat on the same day. According to the Justice Department prosecutors, Hanson told Labat that "bad [expletives] gonna happen to you" if he takes Trump's mugshot. The infamous mugshot was taken Aug. 24 when the former president presented himself to be booked into the Georgia jail.

Hanson is to be formally arraigned in Atlanta on Nov. 13.

"Sending interstate threats to physically harm prosecutors and law enforcement officers is a vile act intended to interfere with the administration of justice and intimidate individuals who accept a solemn duty to protect and safeguard the rights of citizens," U.S. Attorney Ryan Buchanan said.

Trump and 18 other co-defendants were indicted by a Fulton County grand jury Aug. 14 on racketeering charges in connection to their alleged scheme to overturn the state's 2020 presidential election.

Several of the defendants have since pleaded guilty.