Alaska Man Charged With Threatening Supreme Court Justices (1)

An Alaska man has been indicted for sending hundreds of messages threatening to kill and torture members of the US Supreme Court and their relatives, federal prosecutors in Anchorage announced.

In an indictment filed on Wednesday, prosecutors allege that Panos Anastasiou, 76, began sending over 450 messages in March 2023 intended for six of the justices, as well as two of their family members. In January 2024, those messages allegedly began “to convey threats of harm.”

“The messages contained violent, racist, and homophobic rhetoric coupled with threats of assassination via torture, hanging, and firearms, and encouraged others to participate in the acts of violence,” the indictment reads.

Prosecutors allege that some of the messages “were intended to intimidate” and retaliate against actions the justices had taken as part of their official duties on the court.

“We allege that the defendant made repeated, heinous threats to murder and torture Supreme Court Justices and their families to retaliate against them for decisions he disagreed with,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a Thursday statement. “Our justice system depends on the ability of judges to make their decisions based on the law, and not on fear. Our democracy depends on the ability of public officials to do their jobs without fearing for their lives or the safety of their families.”

The indictment didn’t identify which six justices were threatened. However, court papers filed alongside the indictment show some of the messages directed at one justice included racist tropes, such as a threat of lynching, and a reference to an “insurrectionist wife,” indicating one of the threatened justices is likely Justice Clarence Thomas. He is the only male Black justice on the court and his wife Ginni Thomas has drawn scrutiny for her conservative advocacy.

Thomas is one of six conservative justices on the ideologically split court.

A magistrate judge has ordered that Anastasiou be temporarily detained.

Prosecutors have argued in court papers that there’s a serious risk Anastasiou will flee “because he has a demonstrated history of disregard for the authority of federal courts and will be unlikely to obey court orders.” They also claim he “exposes a persistent and obsessive desire to cause harm to his victims and encourage others to harm the victims as well” and “has a history of threatening public officials.”

According to a court filing, the Supreme Court Police reviewed Anastasiou’s messages in the spring of 2023 and found them concerning enough to warrant an investigation. After FBI agents in Anchorage contacted Anastasiou about the messages, he allegedly sent another one referencing the interview “and ‘daring’ the Justices to personally visit his house.”

The filing seeking a detention hearing quotes a handful of the messages that Anastasiou allegedly sent, including a call for “mass assassinations” and for the justices to be tortured.

Security for federal judges has been a focus in recent years, as the judiciary has reported an uptick in threats.

At a judicial conference in Colorado this month, Justice Amy Coney Barrett described the “difficult” transition she and her family experienced as security has ramped up around the justices. That’s included a security detail following her car as she taught her son to drive and taking a bulletproof vest home.

A California man is set to go to trial in June on charges of attempting to assassinate US Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh. He was arrested outside the justice’s Maryland in home in 2022, after a draft opinion leaked ahead of the high court’s reversal of the national constitutional right to abortion set in Roe v. Wade.

The case is USA v. Anastasiou, D. Alaska, No. 3:24-cr-00099, 9/18/24