A Michigan man has been charged with threatening to kill FBI Director Kash Patel and one of Patel’s associates, federal prosecutors said.
Anthony Daniel Palazzolo, 42, of Chesterfield Township, was arrested on Friday, Oct. 30, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Michigan said. He is charged in a criminal complaint with making threats to kill.
Prosecutors said that on Oct. 8, Palazzolo sent a Facebook message to the associate, who has not been named, saying he had “put a hit out” on that person. In the same message, he used crude language to say Patel would be dead too, according to the complaint.
FBI agents later interviewed him. After that, prosecutors said, he kept calling an FBI agent in Detroit and threatened to come to the office and “use deadly force against every single one of you government officials.”
Palazzolo appeared in federal court on Friday afternoon and was ordered held for now. A detention hearing was set for Monday, Nov. 2, when a judge will decide whether he stays in custody until trial.
The FBI’s Detroit field office investigated the case. Assistant U.S. Attorney Eaton Brown is prosecuting it.
Prosecutors have not said what led to the alleged threats. No comment from Palazzolo or a lawyer for him has been made public.
A criminal complaint is only a charge, and Palazzolo is presumed innocent unless proven guilty in court.