A Texas woman who made violent threats in a voicemail left with the federal judge who oversaw the since-dismissed criminal election subversion case against President Donald Trump was sentenced on Wednesday (Nov 12) to 27 months in prison.
Abigail Jo Shry of Alvin, Texas, was sentenced by US District Judge Keith Ellison in Houston after admitting last year she had threatened to kill anyone who went after Trump in a 2023 voicemail left with the chambers of US District Judge Tanya Chutkan, in Washington, DC.
Prosecutors said that in her voicemail, Shry, 45, used a racist slur to address Chutkan, who is Black, and threatened to kill US Representative Sheila Jackson Lee, a Texas Democrat who subsequently died in July 2024, other Democrats and members of the LGBTQ community.
"If Trump doesn't get elected in 2024, we are coming to kill you, so tread lightly, b****," Shry said in the voicemail, according to charging documents.
She placed her call on Aug 5, 2023, just days after Special Counsel Jack Smith's election-subversion case was unsealed, charging Trump with conspiring to obstruct the collection and certification of votes following his defeat to Democrat Joe Biden in 2020's presidential election. Trump denied wrongdoing.
The effort by Trump and his allies to reverse his electoral loss culminated in the Jan 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol following a fiery speech by Trump near the White House.
The case was assigned to Chutkan, an appointee of Democratic former President Barack Obama. After Trump was reelected in November 2024, she dismissed the case at the request of prosecutors, who cited a Justice Department policy against prosecuting a sitting president.
Shry's call was not the only threat Chutkan faced while overseeing Trump's case. In January, she was the victim of an apparent "swatting" call falsely reporting a shooting at her home, prompting a police response.
Shry, in pleading guilty, acknowledged making the threat but said she thought it constituted freedom of speech and that she had no intention of carrying through with her threats.
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