A Long Island man who allegedly made explicit threats against Judge Emmet Sullivan, the jurist presiding over the Michael Flynn trial, was denied bail today and must remain in jail until his trial, Politico reports.
Frank Caporusso, 52, pleaded not guilty to threatening to assault or murder a federal judge in order to interfere with his official duties and one count of making an interstate threat. The charges stem from a message Caporusso reported left on Sullivan’s office voicemail threatening the judge.
“You will not be safe,” the voicemail said. “A hot piece of lead will cut through your skull. You bastard. You will be killed, and I don’t give a fuck who you are. Back out of this bullshit before it’s too late, or we’ll start cutting down your staff. This is not a threat. This is a promise.”
The voicemail was left May 14th, one day after Sullivan appointed an independent amicus for the court to argue why the case against Flynn should not be dismissed, despite the Justice Department dropping charges while they had a confession and plea deal in hand.
The phone call was tracked through phone records to a phone number Caporusso has had since 2003.
In other Flynn case news: Sullivan issued an order Friday requiring the Department of Justice to verify the records it submitted to the Court have not been altered.
The order follows an admission by Justice Department lawyers that records submitted in support of dismissing charges against Flynn to Sullivan were “inadvertently” altered to include inaccurate dates.
Sullivan has the final say in whether the Department of Justice can suddenly drop the case against Flynn after Flynn has twice entered a guilty plea, signed a confession and signed a sworn statement of fact outlining his crimes. The DoJ moved to drop charges on the ally of Donald Trump after it removed the US Attorney for the District of Columbia, claiming it did not have sufficient cause to bring charges in the first place.