NC man indicted on threatening to kill President Joe Biden and other federal officials
A Gastonia man has been indicted by a federal grand jury on a charge of threatening to kill President Joe Biden, stemming from a rash of angry and erratic phone calls he allegedly made to the White House and Secret Service.
David Kyle Reeves, 27, now faces four charges. The most serious: making a threat against the president of the United States, which carries up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine.
He is also charged with two counts of interstate communications with intent to injure, which have a maximum combined punishment of 10 years in prison and a $500,000 fine; and with influencing a federal official by threat, which comes with up to 10-year prison sentence and a $250,000 fine.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Charlotte said Thursday that a court hearing on the new charges included in Reeves’ indictment has not been scheduled. Reeves remained in custody at the Mecklenburg County Jail, where he has been held since his Feb. 5 arrest.
As the Observer previously reported, Reeves made a series of phone calls to the White House switchboard between Jan. 28 and Feb. 1 in which he threatened to kill the president and other federal officials, court documents claim.
He repeated the threats in phone conversations with the Secret Service in which he taunted agents to try and stop him, documents show.
“I’m going to come kill the president, I’m going to kill the Secret Service because I own this whole planet,” Reeves said in a call with a Secret Service special agent, according to an affidavit filed in the case.
In another of the calls, according to the Secret Service affidavit, Reeves appeared to threaten to kill members of Congress. In another, he told one of the agents “to come pick him up, and take him to the White House so he can punch the President in the face, sit in his chair, and stay there until he dies.”
Court documents and an Observer investigation into Reeves’ background revealed a history of criminal violence. His previous charges include threatening the life of a public employee, assault on a police officer while resisting arrest, terroristic threats and acts, and violation of a family violence order, among other arrests.
Defense attorney Kevin Tate, senior litigator with the Federal Public Defenders Office for the Western District of North Carolina, did not immediately respond to an Observer email seeking comment Thursday.
Last week, Tate told the judge at Reeves’s initial court appearance that his client “may be taking” psychotropic medication and that he hoped Reeves could continue to have access to the drugs while in custody.
