20 Months For Threatening To Kill Congressman, Wire Fraud

YONKERS, NY — A Pennsylvania man who threatened the life of a sitting congressman and bilked Trump supporters is headed to federal prison.

Joshua Hall was sentenced Monday by U.S. District Judge Gregory H. Woods to 20 months in prison for making threats to kill a member of the U.S. Congress and impersonating family members of then-President Trump on social media to fraudulently raise funds for a fictitious political organization, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of NY Damian Williams announced.

Hall previously pled guilty to one count of making interstate communications with a threat to injure and one count of wire fraud.

SEE ALSO: PA Man Admits Threatening To Kill Member Of Congress

According to court documents, on August 29, 2022, Hall made several telephone calls from in or around Yonkers to the California office of Rep. Eric Swalwell, a Democratic member of Congress from California. During those telephone calls, Hall conveyed threats to kill Congressman Swalwell to at least three different members of the congressman’s staff.

On a telephone call with staff members, Hall stated that he had a lot of AR-15s and that he wanted to shoot the congressman. He told aides that he intended to come to Swalwell’s office with firearms and that if he saw the congressman, he would kill him. He also told the congressman's staff that he wanted to "beat the s*** out of" the lawmaker and that he would find him wherever he was and hurt him. On a separate call with another staff member, Hall repeated that he intended to come to Swalwell’s office to kill the congressman with firearms.

From September 2019 to December 2020, Hall also defrauded hundreds of victims by making false representations in the course of raising funds for a purported political affinity organization. The fictitious political organization promised to support the reelection of then-President Donald Trump. However, the organization did not exist, and Hall used the funds for his own personal living expenses.

Central to the scheme was the impersonation by Hall of members of Trump’s family, including his minor child, among others, through his creation and use of social media accounts bearing those family members’ names and photographs. Hall used those accounts to amass more than 100,000 followers on social media and to obtain media coverage, a public platform he then exploited to give himself and the fake political group the false appearance of close ties with the Trump’s family and to encourage victims to make contributions.

In total, Hall's scheme yielded thousands of dollars from hundreds of victims located throughout the U.S., including in the Southern District of New York.

In addition to the prison term, 23-year-old Hall, of Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, was sentenced to three years of supervised release.

Williams praised the investigative work of the FBI and the U.S. Capitol Police and thanked the Yonkers Police Department for their assistance.