Man Who Strangled Woman Charged with Threatening to Kill Obama

An Annapolis man who strangled a woman several years ago is in federal custody on charges that he threatened to harm President Barack Obama and his family.

Christopher Perkins O’Brien, 42, of Annapolis, was charged with making a violent threat against the president and threatening bodily harm against the Obama family in a profane email sent to the White House website on Oct. 16, according to court documents reports the Reuters news agency. O’Brien was also charged with using interstate communications to make the threats.

O’Brien appeared on Thursday in U.S. district court in Maryland, where a judge ordered that he be detained, the Secret Service told Reuters.

O’Brien was sentenced in 2007 to 10 years in prison for involuntary manslaughter, with much of it suspended, for fatally strangling Katherine Randolph White in her Anne Arundel County home, reports The Baltimore Sun.

In his alleged threat against the president, the Sun says O’Brien allegedly wrote: “You stupid (racial epithet), between ISIS, homegrown terrorists/beheaders here in the USA, and now your inaction on EBOLA, do you want us all to (expletive) die?!?!,” O’Brien wrote, according to charging documents. “I … hope to reach out to slash Michele’s throat... You?? I will make a point to behead you, then throw your head into the nearest body of water, as I drive off into Maryland.”

When Secret Service agents visited O’Brien, he reportedly denied sending the threatening email, then admitted he sent it but said he is too ill to carry through on his threats, the Sun reports.