The Department of Justice accused the former main opponent of Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., threatened to send a “Russian-Ukrainian hit squad” to kill her political rivals.
William Robert Braddock III, 41, of St. Petersburg, Florida, is charged with threatening to kill his primary opponent in the 2021 election for Florida’s 13th Congressional District, and private citizens and acquaintances of his opponent, the Department of Justice announced Friday. . The indictment, unsealed in the Middle District of Florida on Thursday, describes the targeted individuals only as “Victim 1” and “Victim 2.”
On June 8, 2021, prosecutors said that Braddock allegedly made multiple threats to harm and kill his main opponent during a phone call with a second victim, specifically stating that he would “call in the Russian-Ukrainian hit squad” to make the potential rival disappear. . The DOJ said Braddock left the United States after making the alleged threats and was later found living in the Philippines.
Braddock was recently extradited from the Philippines to the United States and made his first court appearance in Los Angeles on Thursday.
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Rep. Anna Paulina Luna attends a campaign rally for former President Trump at the Aero Center in Wilmington, North Carolina, September 21, 2024. (Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Images)
Luna, an Air Force veteran and former media consultant, was not named in the indictment. While he was a member of Congress, Luna argued in 2021 civil court documents that Braddock, a fellow GOP challenger and former Marine, ostracized him and wanted him dead.
A judge granted Luna and fellow conservative activist and friend Erin Olszewski a temporary restraining order against Braddock. He later dropped out of the race, denying the allegations and citing publicity from the case.
Politico reported at the time that Olszewski had secretly recorded a phone call with Braddock who said the alleged “Russian and Ukrainian hit squad” could kill Luna in 24 hours. “Luna is going down and hopefully she’s on her own,” Braddock said in the recording, according to Politico, which said it had obtained the recording in June 2021. “We have to make some sacrifices.”
In a text message to Politico later, Braddock reportedly said that the tapes “can even be edited and altered” and that he could bring a civil lawsuit and seek criminal charges against the owners of the tapes.
In court proceedings on whether the restraining order will be made permanent, Luna, who was endorsed by former President Trump twice, testified that she only had direct contact with Braddock at political events, but heard from several acquaintances that he allegedly made threats against her killed.
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Rep. Anna Paulina Luna speaks at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee on July 17, 2024. (Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)
“Mr. Braddock clearly hates my guts and wants to hurt me,” Luna said in court, according to the Associated Press. “I started to be really scared of him. It was scary, and it still is.”
“I think he’s a bad guy,” he said in September 2021. “I think he’s really scared of me.”
Olszewski testified that he secretly recorded the phone call that began with Braddock in which he claimed that the Russian-Ukrainian hit squad would respond quickly if he made a single phone call – and also allegedly made veiled threats to his three children if he repeated what he did. said. Olszewski said she shared the contents of Braddock’s phone calls recorded on her iPad with Luna, and both women called the police.
In a new indictment unsealed last week, Braddock was charged with one count of interstate transmission of a true threat to injure another person.
He faces a maximum sentence of five years in prison if convicted, prosecutors said.
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The case was brought to the Justice Department’s Election Threats Task Force, which was announced by Attorney General Merrick Garland in 2021 to address threats of violence against election workers.
Fox News Digital reached out to Luna’s office for comment Sunday but did not immediately hear back. A spokeswoman for the GOP congresswoman declined to comment to NBC News about the allegations but said Luna has “faced an increasing number of death threats” in the past month, signaling “a broader and troubling problem of violence in the political arena.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
