Colorado
Man who blamed exposure to far-right content gets 3 years for threatening election officials
DENVER (AP) — A man who blamed exposure to far-right extremist content for motivating his online threats to kill Democratic election officials Colorado and Arizona was sentenced Thursday to three years in prison.
Teak Ty Brockbank pleaded guilty in October to making threats between September 2021 and August 2022 against Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold and former Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, who is now governor. He also threatened a Colorado judge and federal agents.
Federal prosecutors sought three years in prison for Brockbank. He asked for leniency, saying he made the posts when he was drinking heavily, socially isolated and spending his evenings consuming conspiracy theories online.
His attorney described Brockbank as a “keyboard warrior” with no intent to carry out the threats. Brockbank spent time on social media sites like Gab and Rumble, the alternative video-sharing platform that has been criticized for allowing and promoting far-right extremism.
The sites delivered “the message that the country was under attack and that patriotic Americans had a duty to rise up and act,” said Brockbank attorney Tom Ward. Ward said Brockbank was drawn to the QAnon conspiracy theory and noted in a court filing that Michael Flynn and Roger Stone were prominent on Rumble.
Brockbank posted online that Colorado’s top election official should “Hang by the neck” and her former counterpart in Arizona should also be put to death.
Prosecutors said in a court filing that a prison sentence was warranted in part to deter others from threatening election officials.
“Threats to elections workers across the country are an ongoing and very serious problem,” wrote Jonathan Jacobsen, a Washington-based trial attorney for the Justice Department’s public integrity section.
Under the Biden administration, the department launched a task force in 2021 to combat the rise of threats targeting election officials. Brockbank’s conviction in the fall was one of over a dozen convictions won by the unit.
At the time, the longest sentences handed down was 3.5 years in prison in two separate cases involving election officials in Arizona. In one case, a man who advocated for “a mass shooting of poll workers,” posted threatening statements in November 2022 about two Maricopa County officials and their children, prosecutors said.
In the other, a Massachusetts man pleaded guilty to sending a bomb threat in February 2021 to an election official in the Arizona Secretary of State’s office.
Brockbank, who has been in custody since his arrest in August 2024, asked to be sentenced to time served plus three years supervised release and possibly six months in home detention or a halfway house.
Prosecutors agreed not to pursue charges against Brockbank for having firearms he was barred from possessing because of a previous conviction or for online threats he made later.
One such threat was against Griswold last year for her role in helping the prosecution of former Colorado clerk, Tina Peters. Prosecutors say he also threatened judges on the Colorado Supreme Court after they removed Donald Trump from the state’s ballot. The U.S. Supreme Court later restored Trump’s name to the ballot.
California
Judge finds man charged with stalking Jennifer Aniston mentally incompetent to stand trial
LOS ANGELES (AP) — A judge declared Thursday that a man is mentally incompetent to stand trial on charges of stalking Jennifer Aniston and crashing his car through her front gate.
The move in a Los Angeles County mental health court came after a second psychiatrist examined the defendant, Jimmy Wayne Carwyle, and reached the same conclusion as the first: that his mental health would not allow him to answer to felony charges of vandalism and stalking of the “Friends” star.
“The court finds the defendant is not currently competent to stand trial,” Judge Maria Cavalluzzi said. “Criminal proceedings will remain suspended.”
Carwyle, 48, of Mississippi, has pleaded not guilty. He appeared behind glass in a custody area of the courtroom and did not speak. He looked vastly different than his previous two court hearings. His scraggly gray hair and beard had been shorn, and he was wearing bright yellow county jail clothing after previously appearing with bare shoulders, wrapped in a blanket-like smock meant for suicide prevention.
Carwyle had argued that he is competent, and exercised his right to a second opinion after an initial incompetence finding last week.
“It’s not the outcome my client would have preferred,” Deputy Public Defender Robert Krauss told the judge.
A conviction on the charges, along with an aggravating circumstance of the threat of great bodily harm, could bring up to three years in prison for Carwyle. The incompetence finding has no set end date but it is temporary, and the standard criminal process could resume later.
Cavalluzzi ordered more comprehensive mental evaluations to help determine where and how he’ll be held, and what his treatment will be. The judge will get a report on the results at a June 26 hearing, where Aniston or her attorney will be allowed to share her perspective on the case.
Aniston’s lawyer, Blair Berk, was in the courtroom observing Thursday, but did not speak. Berk and the deputy district attorney handling the case declined comment outside court.
Prosecutors allege Carwyle had been harassing Aniston with a flood of voicemail, email and social media messages for two years before driving his Chrysler PT Cruiser through the gate of her home in the wealthy Bel Air neighborhood of Los Angeles on May 5, causing major damage. A security guard stopped him in her driveway until police arrived. Authorities said Aniston was home at the time, but did not come into contact, and no one was injured.
Aniston became one of television’s biggest stars in her 10 years on NBC’s “Friends,” from 1994 until 2004. She currently stars in “The Morning Show” on Apple TV+.
Man who blamed exposure to far-right content gets 3 years for threatening election officials
DENVER (AP) — A man who blamed exposure to far-right extremist content for motivating his online threats to kill Democratic election officials Colorado and Arizona was sentenced Thursday to three years in prison.
Teak Ty Brockbank pleaded guilty in October to making threats between September 2021 and August 2022 against Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold and former Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, who is now governor. He also threatened a Colorado judge and federal agents.
Federal prosecutors sought three years in prison for Brockbank. He asked for leniency, saying he made the posts when he was drinking heavily, socially isolated and spending his evenings consuming conspiracy theories online.
His attorney described Brockbank as a “keyboard warrior” with no intent to carry out the threats. Brockbank spent time on social media sites like Gab and Rumble, the alternative video-sharing platform that has been criticized for allowing and promoting far-right extremism.
The sites delivered “the message that the country was under attack and that patriotic Americans had a duty to rise up and act,” said Brockbank attorney Tom Ward. Ward said Brockbank was drawn to the QAnon conspiracy theory and noted in a court filing that Michael Flynn and Roger Stone were prominent on Rumble.
Brockbank posted online that Colorado’s top election official should “Hang by the neck” and her former counterpart in Arizona should also be put to death.
Prosecutors said in a court filing that a prison sentence was warranted in part to deter others from threatening election officials.
“Threats to elections workers across the country are an ongoing and very serious problem,” wrote Jonathan Jacobsen, a Washington-based trial attorney for the Justice Department’s public integrity section.
Under the Biden administration, the department launched a task force in 2021 to combat the rise of threats targeting election officials. Brockbank’s conviction in the fall was one of over a dozen convictions won by the unit.
At the time, the longest sentences handed down was 3.5 years in prison in two separate cases involving election officials in Arizona. In one case, a man who advocated for “a mass shooting of poll workers,” posted threatening statements in November 2022 about two Maricopa County officials and their children, prosecutors said.
In the other, a Massachusetts man pleaded guilty to sending a bomb threat in February 2021 to an election official in the Arizona Secretary of State’s office.
Brockbank, who has been in custody since his arrest in August 2024, asked to be sentenced to time served plus three years supervised release and possibly six months in home detention or a halfway house.
Prosecutors agreed not to pursue charges against Brockbank for having firearms he was barred from possessing because of a previous conviction or for online threats he made later.
One such threat was against Griswold last year for her role in helping the prosecution of former Colorado clerk, Tina Peters. Prosecutors say he also threatened judges on the Colorado Supreme Court after they removed Donald Trump from the state’s ballot. The U.S. Supreme Court later restored Trump’s name to the ballot.
California
Judge finds man charged with stalking Jennifer Aniston mentally incompetent to stand trial
LOS ANGELES (AP) — A judge declared Thursday that a man is mentally incompetent to stand trial on charges of stalking Jennifer Aniston and crashing his car through her front gate.
The move in a Los Angeles County mental health court came after a second psychiatrist examined the defendant, Jimmy Wayne Carwyle, and reached the same conclusion as the first: that his mental health would not allow him to answer to felony charges of vandalism and stalking of the “Friends” star.
“The court finds the defendant is not currently competent to stand trial,” Judge Maria Cavalluzzi said. “Criminal proceedings will remain suspended.”
Carwyle, 48, of Mississippi, has pleaded not guilty. He appeared behind glass in a custody area of the courtroom and did not speak. He looked vastly different than his previous two court hearings. His scraggly gray hair and beard had been shorn, and he was wearing bright yellow county jail clothing after previously appearing with bare shoulders, wrapped in a blanket-like smock meant for suicide prevention.
Carwyle had argued that he is competent, and exercised his right to a second opinion after an initial incompetence finding last week.
“It’s not the outcome my client would have preferred,” Deputy Public Defender Robert Krauss told the judge.
A conviction on the charges, along with an aggravating circumstance of the threat of great bodily harm, could bring up to three years in prison for Carwyle. The incompetence finding has no set end date but it is temporary, and the standard criminal process could resume later.
Cavalluzzi ordered more comprehensive mental evaluations to help determine where and how he’ll be held, and what his treatment will be. The judge will get a report on the results at a June 26 hearing, where Aniston or her attorney will be allowed to share her perspective on the case.
Aniston’s lawyer, Blair Berk, was in the courtroom observing Thursday, but did not speak. Berk and the deputy district attorney handling the case declined comment outside court.
Prosecutors allege Carwyle had been harassing Aniston with a flood of voicemail, email and social media messages for two years before driving his Chrysler PT Cruiser through the gate of her home in the wealthy Bel Air neighborhood of Los Angeles on May 5, causing major damage. A security guard stopped him in her driveway until police arrived. Authorities said Aniston was home at the time, but did not come into contact, and no one was injured.
Aniston became one of television’s biggest stars in her 10 years on NBC’s “Friends,” from 1994 until 2004. She currently stars in “The Morning Show” on Apple TV+.
