Man who threatened to kill Rep. Steve Stivers gets 40-month prison sentence

Last June a man named E. Stanley Hoff was arrested and charged for making death threats against Ohio Rep. Steve Stivers. Today, Hoff was sentenced to 40 months in prison. From WCMH:

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According to the Federal Prosecutor Benjamin C. Glassman, E. Stanley Hoff, 69, of Westerville, was sentenced to 40 months in prison after he left a series of threatening voicemails at Stiver’s office in Hilliard.

In one message Hoff stated , “We’re going to take care of it our way,” and “Leave Obamacare alone or die.”…

“Hoff threatened the Congressman and his family because the Congressman was not legislating according to Hoff’s political views,” said U.S. Attorney Glassman.

WCMH previously reported that Hoff left a total of 5 threatening messages for Rep. Stivers between February 2017 and June. After the 5th message, Hoff was given a warning by Capitol Police. However, he left another threatening voicemail just a week after the politically motivated baseball diamond shooting that nearly killed Rep. Steve Scalise:

“I’ve seen the prayer ya’ll were saying at the baseball diamond … I think ya’ll better hit your knees and pray for the people that you’re screwin’ up their lives,” the message stated, according to a criminal complaint filed by Capitol Police in U.S. District Court in Columbus.

“We’re coming to get every goddamn one of you and your families. Maybe the next one taken down will be your daughter. Huh? Or your wife. Or even you.”

After that threat, Hoff was arrested. He pleaded guilty last October. The threat against Rep. Stivers was just one of several incidents involving dozens of GOP Representatives which took place last year during the first flush of the resistance campaign against the Trump administration.

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May 8: Wendi Wright, 35, was arrested after stalking Rep. David Kustoff (Tenn.) and trying to run him off the road. After pulling over, Wright “began to scream and strike the windows on Kustoff’s car and even reached inside the vehicle.”

May 9: Virginia Rep. Tom Garrett needed heavy security at a town hall after receiving a series of death threats in May that police “deemed to be credible and real.”

“This is how we’re going to kill your wife,” one message said. Others detailed how they would kill his children, and even his dog.

That was before the shooting of Rep. Scalise and the death threats against Rep. Martha McSally which also resulted in an arrest. Last June Sergeant at Arms for the House of Representatives Paul Irving revealed that Capitol Hill police had investigated more threats against Members of Congress in the first half of 2017 (950) than they had in all of 2016 (902). Irving did not reveal whether those threats were spread equally among Democrats and Republicans but, as I suggested at the time, that seems unlikely given the number of arrests involving threats on Republicans.

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