Encino Man Charged With Threatening Boston Globe Employees

ENCINO, CA –An Encino man is facing federal charges for allegedly threatening to shoot Boston Globe employees whom he called an "enemy of the people" after the Globe launched a national newspaper campaign in support of the free press and the First Amendment, it was reported Thursday.

Robert Darrell Chain, 68, of Encino was arrested Thursday at his home by law enforcement, including a SWAT team, the Boston Globe reported.

The criminal complaint was filed on Aug. 13 in the U.S. District Court, for the District of Massachusetts, charging Chain with transmitting in interstate commerce any communication containing a threat to injure the person of another.

Also, and according to the complaint, a firearms check revealed that Chain owns several firearms, and bought a new 9mm carbine rifle in 2018.

He is scheduled to appear in a Los Angeles courtroom Thursday and will eventually be arraigned in U.S. District Court in Boston at a later date, prosecutors said.

According to federal prosecutors, when the Globe called for newspapers around the country to use their opinion pages to counter President Donald Trump's description of the news media as an "enemy of the people, Chain started calling the Globe,

In the calls, Chain referred to the Globe as "the enemy of the people" and threatened to kill newspaper employees, prosecutors wrote in a statement cited by the Globe. "In total, it is alleged that Chain made approximately 14 threatening phone calls to the Globe between Aug. 10 and Aug. 22, 2018," according to prosecutors.

Related: Man Threatened To Kill Boston Globe Workers After Editorial: Feds

City News Service and Patch staffer Emily Holland contributed to this post; Photo by Alison Bauter for Patch