Maricopa County Board of Supervisors Clint Hickman stands for a portrait outside the Sandra Day O'Connor Federal Courthouse after the sentencing of Mark Lissey on Monday, August 28, 2023 in Phoenix, Arizona.Photo by Caitlin O'Hara | Vote Beat
Maricopa County Board of Supervisors Chairman Clint Hickman continued his case Monday in federal court in Phoenix until the topic of family matters came up.
Hickman told the judge he remembered the night in 2020 when dozens of protesters, spurred by lies about the fairness of the county's presidential election, forced his wife and young children into his home. He said he was there. He remembers years of harassment against him and his colleagues. He remembers the moment he saw his teenage son understand his choice not to respond to hatred with physical confrontation or violence.
“My son saw me and understood,” she said, choking up for words.
Mark Rissey of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, was sitting behind the defendant as he spoke in the dock. He is one of the many who threatened him.
A few days after the release, Results of partisan “audit” In September 2021, during the 2020 county election, Ms. Lissey called Ms. Hickman's office phone, accused her of lying about the fairness of the election, told her she was going to die, and said, “I want to be hanged.'' I will,” he said.
A few months later, he called former Attorney General Mark Brnovich with similar threats.
U.S. District Judge Dominic W. Lanza on Monday sentenced Lissey, 65, to 2 1/2 years in prison and three years of probation after pleading guilty to two counts of interstate menacing. . Lanza called these threats “very serious crimes,” and he said these types of threats affect the entire election system.
“Those who are dissatisfied with the election results cannot threaten public officials or election officials,” Lanza said. “This is a clear and insurmountable line, and there must be serious consequences.”
The sentencing is one example of the beginning of accountability for those who spread lies about the fairness of the 2020 and 2022 elections and threatened public officials in Arizona and across the country.
it comes in the midst of it Charges against former President Donald Trump his allies as lawyers who filed frivolous election fraud lawsuits; sanctioned in courtand as the court hears multiple defamation lawsuits from companies including: dominion voting system Others include Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer.
Risci is one of four men recently charged or convicted of threatening election officials in Arizona since the 2020 election.
Earlier this month, a Massachusetts man pled guilty in federal court including sending a bomb threat to Governor Katie Hobbs in February 2021 when she was Arizona's secretary of state.In another case, earlier this month a Texas man sentenced to three and a half years in federal prison after threatening Richer and County Attorney Tom Liddy on social media. And in June, Phoenix man indicted The Arizona Attorney General's Office sent a threatening email to Supervisor Bill Gates in November 2022.
Gates said: He said the threats against Mr Richer had contributed to his post-traumatic stress disorder, that he had been defamed and that it had affected his family. Countless election officials have resigned.on the grounds of harassment.
On Monday, Lissey told a judge that she had been misled by misinformation about the election and said she was remorseful. However, the judge said during sentencing that although he recanted his statements when the FBI interviewed him in June 2022, he still wanted to violently harm election officials.
“While I don't want anyone to be illegally lynched or hanged, there are still many people who must be hanged,” Rissi told the FBI, drawing gasps in court. I heard a sound.
Gates, Liddy, Richer and other county officials filled the gallery in support of Hickman. As Hickman emerged from the courtroom, she tried to hold back tears when asked what sentencing meant to her.
“I just hope this ends,” he told Votebeat. “For the sake of my family, I hope this ends. This appears to be a strategy to get people not to think about public services. So by what happened today, I hope that these strategies end. I hope some of it gets reversed.”
'You're going to die.'
Threats against Mr. Hickman, his fellow supervisors, and other Arizona election officials have been going on for years.
On September 24, a contractor conducting partisan research on Maricopa elections released a report confirming Biden's 2020 victory in Arizona.
Three days later, Lissey called Hickman's office phone and left an anonymous voicemail.
I'm glad you want to stand up for democracy and put your hand on the Bible and say the election was honest and fair. Thank you very much. When we come to lynch your stupid lying communist ass, you'll remember that you lied to the fucking Bible, you son of a bitch. You're going to die, you son of a bitch. I'll hang you. I'll hang you.
A few months later, on Dec. 8, Ms. Lissy called Ms. Brnovich and left an anonymous voicemail on her office phone.
I am a victim of a crime. My family are victims of crime. A relative of mine is a victim of a crime. That crime was the theft of the 2020 election. Elections were fraudulent throughout Arizona. [Brnovich] I know it was a scam, it was [Brnovich] includes images of co-conspirators deleting election fraud data from the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors' computer systems. Do your job…or you'll end up hanging out with those motherfuckers. We will definitely respond. Torches and pitchforks. That's your future, dip**. do your job.
During court arguments, Lissey said he made the first threat against Hickman in a “mentally weakened state” while suffering from depression from the recent death of his mother and experiencing medical problems. “I was also bombarded with misinformation and exaggeration,” he wrote. About Arizona's election process. ”
On Monday, he and his attorney, Anthony Knowles, tried to convince Lanza that Lissey's sentence should be only 12 months and one day.
Knowles said Lissey was responsible for the threatening behavior but had no intention of harming anyone and had no criminal history.
Lissey began by apologizing to the victims, but did not turn back to where Hickman was sitting.
Lissie then described how she had been spending time with her mother in hospice before making the threat, and blamed the coronavirus vaccine for her mother's death, saying the vaccine caused blood clots and strokes.
While choking, he said he took sleeping pills and painkillers to help him sleep. He said he did not remember leaving one of the messages.
“More than anything, I want you to forgive me for what I said,” he said.
“They are also a threat to democracy.”
On behalf of Mr. Brnovich and Mr. Hickman, U.S. Attorney Tanya Senanayake asked Mr. Lanza to sentence Mr. Rissi to 24 months in prison. She said Mr Lissey's words were deliberate, threatening and a threat not only to the public servants he called, but to the electoral system as a whole.
“In that sense, they are also a threat to democracy,” she says.
Mr. Senanayake pointed out that many election officials are facing such threats, leading to mass resignations of election officials across the country. In the past two years, election officials have left their positions in 13 of Arizona's 15 counties.
She read a statement from Brnovich, saying those who threatened election officials “must be held accountable.”
Mr Hickman, 58, said he was grateful for how much the threat affected his family and that his sons were able to learn of his forceful and convict response.
He talked about watching a theatrical production of “A Story of Alabama'' with his son, and his son said that after watching Atticus Finch, he understood why his father didn't choose violence despite the threats against him. Ta.
Hickman said it makes him angry to hear people say death threats are wrong, “but the election shouldn't have been stolen.”
“If you're going to talk like that, we'll never get out of this environment,” Hickman said.
David Becker, executive director of the national nonprofit Center for Election Innovation and Research, called Monday's ruling “justice.” He said he is glad that accountability is beginning to be held in this case and many others.
“Accountability is reassuring for election officials, especially as they continue to face, and in some cases have escalated, abuse and harassment to this day,” he said.
A federal task force was convened a year ago to investigate harassment of election workers. According to one report, this has resulted in four new federal lawsuits. Updated on August 1st. It's unclear whether the three federal cases in Arizona will be included in that tally.
After examining more than 1,000 harassment reports, the agency found that 11% contained threats of unlawful violence that met the criteria for a federal investigation. Most of them are in battleground states.
After Monday's hearing, Lissey told Votebeat that those who commit crimes “should consider the impact on their families and finances.”
He declined to comment on whether he still believes the 2020 election was stolen from Trump.
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