WASHINGTON — A Texas woman faces federal charges for allegedly threatening to kill the judge overseeing former President Donald Trump’s election fraud case and a Democratic member of Congress earlier this month.
In a criminal complaint filed Friday, federal investigators say Abigail Jo Shry, of Alvin, Texas, left a voicemail on Aug. 5 threatening to kill U.S. District Judge Tanya S. Chutkan and Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX). News of the complaint was first reported Wednesday evening by Bloomberg Law.
According to the complaint, Shry admitted to Department of Homeland Security investigators she left the voicemail, which began, “Hey you stupid slave" followed by a racial epithet and then proceeded to threaten to kill anyone who went after Trump. That list included Chutkan, Lee, “all Democrats in Washington D.C. and all people in the LGBTQ community,” investigators wrote.
“You are in our sights, we want to kill you,” Shry allegedly said at one point, later adding, “If Trump doesn’t get elected in 2024, we are coming to kill you, so tread lightly, b****.”
Chutkan, a 2014 nominee of former President Barack Obama, was assigned earlier this month to oversee the government’s case accusing Trump of conspiring to defraud the United States with his efforts to overturn the 2020 election. Lee is a senior member of multiple committees in the U.S. House of Representatives, including the Judiciary Committee, who introduced articles of impeachment against Trump a day after the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot. Both Chutkan and Lee are Black women.
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The complaint charges Shry with one count of transmitting a threat to injure another person – a felony that carries a maximum prison term of up to five years. According to the complaint, although Shry admitted to making the call she denied any plans to travel to D.C. or Houston to carry out anything she stated, “adding that if Sheila Jackson Lee comes to Alvin, then we need to worry.”
On Monday, a federal judge in Texas ordered Shry held without bond during a preliminary detention hearing. Magistrate Judge Sam S. Sheldon’s detention order noted Shry has been charged four times in the past year for engaging in similar conduct, including at least two cases that resulted in conviction and 30 days imprisonment. According to Sheldon, Shry was also charged on July 11 with misdemeanor threat causing fear of imminent serious bodily injury and was on bond in that case when she made the alleged call to Chutkan’s office in D.C.
A full bond hearing for Shry was scheduled for Sept. 13 in the Southern District of Texas.