A man previously charged with sending death threats against Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy and attendees at a New Hampshire campaign event has been charged with threatening to kill other candidates, federal prosecutors said Thursday.
A federal grand jury on Wednesday charged Tyler Anderson, 30, with three counts of sending threatening communications across state lines over violent text messages to three presidential candidates, according to a court document filed by the U.S. Attorney's Office for New Hampshire.
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The threatening texts date back to Nov. 22, when Anderson, of Dover, threatened to disembowel and impale one candidate. He threatened to blow off another candidate's head and kill others in text messages sent Dec. 6.
And two days later, he threatened to kill a third candidate and "kill everyone" at a campaign event on the candidate's schedule, prosecutors said, without identifying the candidates.
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NBC10 Boston has reached out to the presidential candidates currently campaigning in New Hampshire.
Anderson was previously charged with sending threatening communications across state lines over a threat to Ramaswamy's campaign — apparently the Dec. 8 allegations from Wednesday's grand jury indictment, for which Anderson was arrested on Dec. 9.
In that exchange, according to court documents from the previous indictment, Anderson allegedly received a text message from Ramaswamy's campaign notifying him of a political event in Portsmouth and responded, "Great, another opportunity for me to blow [the candidate's] brains out!" and "I'm going to kill everyone who attends and then [expletive] their corpses."
Anderson appeared in court last week to face the first charge and was released on condition he avoid contact with any presidential candidate or their campaigns, take all medications he's been prescribed as he receives mental health treatment and not have guns in his home.
At the hearing, a federal prosecutor argued to keep Anderson in detention pending his trial, saying "very violent, concerning language" was used. But both the prosecution and defense lawyers said Anderson acknowledged that he had no intent to follow through on his texts, and Anderson had no criminal record.
Documents filed in the initial case against Anderson said the text messages targeted a candidate who was "scheduled to hold a campaign event in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, on December 11, 2023" at 8:30 a.m. They said the event included a "buffet Style breakfast."
Ramaswamy was the only candidate with a listed event in Portsmouth that day, an 8:30 a.m. town hall at the Roundabout Diner. Tricia McLaughlin, a representative of the Ramaswamy campaign, confirmed at the time of his arrest that it was targeted by Anderson's threat.
"We are grateful to law enforcement for their swiftness and professionalism in handling this matter and pray for the safety of all Americans," she said in an email.
Court documents showed investigators used Verizon Wireless records to determine that the two messages were sent from Anderson's phone at 10:06 a.m. on Friday, about six minutes after he received a text message from the candidate's campaign.
Federal agents obtained a search warrant for Anderson's residence on Central Avenue in Dover and seized a Samsung Galaxy S10E phone believed to have sent the text messages, along with firearms. Court documents did not say what type of guns were seized.
During a preliminary search of the phone, an FBI agent said they found, in a deleted folder, the text messages reported by the candidate's campaign staff. They also found additional text messages sent previously to a different candidate, including similar threats to "blow that bastard's head off!"
"Thanks, I'll see you there. Hope you have the stamina for a mass shooting!" one of the messages said.
During an interview with the FBI, Anderson admitted to sending the threatening messages to the candidate and said he sent similar threatening text messages to "multiple other campaigns."
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
