A Navajo County man has asked a U.S. court to dismiss charges that he made threatening comments online against law enforcement, days after he took part in an online exchange with people who carried out a deadly attack in Australia. I'm looking for it.
Attorneys for Donald Day Jr., of Heber, Ariz., said in a Tuesday filing that his request was made because the indictment does not allege that Day made any comments intended to harm any specific person. He said the two counts of interstate intimidation of a person should be thrown out.
Day's attorney, Mark Rumoldo, also said Day's online comments did not seriously express an intent to commit violence and were speech protected by the First Amendment. .
The Phoenix federal prosecutor's office, which is prosecuting Mr. Day, declined to comment Thursday on the request for dismissal.
Investigators say six people were killed in an attack in rural Wiambira, Australia, on December 12, 2022. Two Queensland police officers and a bystander were ambushed and shot dead on the Trains' secluded property by Gareth Train, his brother Nathaniel Train, and Nathaniel's wife Stacey Train.
Officers visited the property to investigate a report of a missing person. During the six-hour siege, police killed three people considered to be conspiracy theorists. Police described the attack as a religiously motivated attack.
Gareth Train started on YouTube in May 2020, following Day. After a year, they started communicating directly.
Day has pleaded not guilty to the charges in Arizona, but is currently incarcerated and awaiting trial after a judge determined he posed a danger to the community and was a potential fugitive from authorities.
indictment Announced in late November, the court found that from early 2022 to February 2023, Mr. Day committed “a series of incidents demonstrating a desire to incite violence and intimidate various groups and individuals, including law enforcement and government officials.” He claimed that he had committed the act of
Prosecutors said in the indictment that Day made comments such as “If you don't protect yourself from demons and evil spirits, you're a coward'' on a video posted by two people who killed a police officer in Australia. . The video was posted after the killing.
In his post, Day said he wished he could have been with them and profanely said “those bastards” would regret ever messing with them. Four days later, Day posted a video saying the men who assaulted the officers “did what they had to do because they did not want to submit to a monster, an illegal entity, a demonic entity.” ”
Day's lawyer said the charges against his client should be dismissed because neither involved threats against “natural persons” and because they allege “genuine threats.”
In one count, Day is accused of threatening to injure a law enforcement officer who visited Day's home in suburban Heberovergaard four days after the murder in Australia. Rumoldo wrote that it was impossible to determine whether Day was threatening a specific person when he wrote that “the demons that attack us” would die.
In another charge, Day is accused of making online threats to harm a person in 2023, whose full identity is not disclosed in the indictment, but Day's lawyer claims that the person was a member of the World Health Organization. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General of the Mr Rumold disputed that Mr Day's comments about WHO staff could legally be classified as a “real threat”.
