A 35-year-old Grand Blanc man is accused of sending more than a dozen threatening emails to President Donald Trump, Vice President Mike Pence, Mott Community College and a Michigan Adult Protective Services social worker, according to a U.S. Eastern District Court filing.
Jeffrey David Cox is said to have sent 18 threatening emails Saturday, May 16, from his personal email to Mott Community College’s admissions office, Monroe (New York) Community College’s president’s office and the Navy’s Recruit Training Command in Great Lakes, Illinois, according to an affidavit filed by Jeffery Brook, a special agent with the United States Secret Service (USSS).
The document included excerpts from emails Cox sent. In them, Cox wrote:
“I will steal an aircraft and crash it into the U.S. Naval Reservation in San Diego, California.”
“There is a bomb in the White House set to detonate Monday, May 18, 2020 at 12:00 PM. I either placed it near the main white house gates or in the White House itself. I plan to assassinate the President and the Vice President. Nobody can stop me.”
“I will place a bomb in all Mott Community College campuses set to detonate on Monday, May 18, 2020. This time it is for real and I am dead serious about it. I will also go on a shooting spree and kill all of the students and staff at all of the campuses of Mott Community College sometime next week. This time it is for real and I am dead serious about it. I won’t tell you when I will do it because I don’t want the police to catch me or stop me, but rest assured I will do it and this time it is for real. I am doing this because I think it is extremely funny and I just love the thrill of killing people and destroying buildings and stirring up trouble. There is nothing you or the police can do to stop me! Ha Ha Ha!”
Grand Blanc Police Department detectives and USSS special agents executed a state search warrant at Cox’s residence in Grand Blanc, according to the document. His mobile phone and laptop were seized and the threatening emails were found in his sent email folder. He admitted to sending the emails.
Cox denied an intent to carry out the specific threats in the emails, though.
“Cox claimed that he had no negative feelings toward the protectees nor the White House, and he did not intend on carrying out those threats,” the affidavit reads.
Cox said he picked those email addresses by doing public internet searches and sent the emails to help calm himself down, the document states.
Offenses include use of interstate communications to make a bomb threat, making threats against the president and vice president of the United States and use of interstate communications to make threat to injure another person, according to the affidavit.
When searching records of Cox’s email address, special agents with the Naval Criminal Investigative Service found the address was previously used by Cox during to threaten MCC in 2017, according to the affidavit.
Cox admitted to police he sent threatening emails to MCC in 2017, according to the affidavit.
“This affidavit does not contain all of the investigative facts known to me,” Brook states in the affidavit.
Cox is being held at the Genesee County Jail. Court records show he was arraigned Wednesday on state charges of false report of terrorism and using a computer to commit a crime. He was given a $50,000 cash or surety bond at that time, the records show.
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