Chicago -- May 18, 2022: A man from the suburbs of Chicago was sentenced to more than three years in federal prison today for making a series of threatening phone calls to members of Congress and threatening to commit violence at the 2021 presidential inauguration in Washington, D.C.

Louis Capriotti, 47, of Chicago Heights, Ill., was sentenced to 37 months in prison by US District Judge Ronald A. Guzman. Capriotti pled guilty to a federal charge of interstate commerce threat transmission last autumn. He has been in federal custody since January 12, 2021, and will be given credit for time already served.

John R. Lausch, Jr., US Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, and Emmerson Buie, Jr., Special Agent-in-Charge of the FBI's Chicago Field Office, announced the sentencing. The investigation was carried out by the US Secret Service and the US Capitol Police. The government was represented by Assistant US Attorneys James P. Durkin and William Dunne.

In a Dec. 29, 2020, voicemail for a U.S. House member, Capriotti stated that if certain individuals “think that Joe Biden is going to put his hand on the Bible and walk into that [expletive] White House on January 20th, they’re sadly [expletive] mistaken.”  Capriotti further stated in the voicemail, “We will surround the [expletive] White House and we will kill any [expletive] Democrat that steps on the [expletive] lawn.”

Capriotti in November and December 2020 left other threatening messages on the voicemail systems of other members of Congress, during which he falsely stated that he was an active U.S. Marine and referred to certain members of Congress as “terrorists.”

“Capriotti’s crime was a serious offense,” Assistant U.S. Attorney James P. Durkin argued in the government’s sentencing memorandum.  “Such threats must be taken seriously because they have real implications for the victims receiving them.”


Wnctimes by Marjorie Farrington


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