A Dickson City man who considered himself an assassin was charged this week with threatening to kill President Donald Trump, other elected officials, police and Jews in Facebook posts earlier this month.
“I’m God’s assassin,” Stacy Wayne Mann, 51, wrote in a July 15 Facebook post, according to an arrest affidavit. “Please America, get me next to the POTUS ... I got you America.”
POTUS is a common abbreviation for president of the United States.
State Trooper Justin Leri charged Mann with a single count of making terroristic threats.
Case started with FBI
The state police political violence threat unit took the case based on a July 9 notification from the U.S. Secret Service, which had received a referral from the FBI.
The FBI’s referral to the Secret Service mentioned Mann’s Facebook posts “with death threats to President Donald J. Trump, other government officials and law enforcement.”
Leri found 30,000 posts in Mann’s Facebook profile and took note of “all recent posts (that) appeared to contain threatening language, related to the killing of all individuals in government, including but not limited to the president of the United States, U.S. Congress, (the state General Assembly), local political leaders, law enforcement and individuals of Jewish heritage.”
Trooper: Mann planned to commit killings himself
“I noted that posts contained not only violent rhetoric calling for the death of these individuals but also threats indicating that Mann would be committing the killings himself,” Leri wrote in the affidavit.
A criminal background check found Mann convicted of robbery, aggravated assault, including on law enforcement and drug and theft offenses, according to the affidavit.
Using Mann’s driver’s license, they tracked him to a Dickson City address. The homeowner there told police Mann used to work for his plumbing business and lived in his home’s basement.
'Obsessed with killing government officials'
The homeowner said he fired Mann and asked him to leave the home.
“(The homeowner) indicated that Mann was obsessed with killing government officials and talked about it constantly,” the affidavit says. “(The homeowner) indicated that Mann has a history of violence, and he had personally witnessed it. He verified that Mann was constantly making Facebook posts related to killing government officials and law enforcement.”
“I’m serious America, if I have to lived with this kind of deprivation, I’d rather kill these (expletive) and try and take as many of them with me before I go,” one July 16 post said.
“I already know I’m going to wind up taking a gun going live on Facebook and cutely killing a couple police officers, judges, DA, congressman, City Council members, online scream (sic) at some point,” he wrote in another post the same day. “America because you’re not going to rise up When I die for you, you will then make the choice to live, you will make the choice to rise up and kill the domestic terrorists that have infiltrated the American government and the American society as a whole.”
Two days earlier, he accused unspecified police of being “government employed terrorist(s)” and urged Americans to “rise up” and “kill every police officer you come in (contact) with!”
“We’re going to start giving them accountability for their actions ... same thing with your local Congressman, senatores (sic), house (of) representatives, state representatives, city council members ... Let’s kill them like the punks they are,” Mann wrote, according to the affidavit.
Mann was unable to post $25,000 bail and was jailed at the Lackawanna County Prison. His preliminary hearing is scheduled for Aug. 5 at 10:15 a.m.
