Phila. man to plead guilty for Jim Bunning e-mail

A Philadelphia man has agreed to plead guilty to sending threatening e-mail to U.S. Sen. Jim Bunning, the Hall-of-Fame Phillies pitcher.

Bruce Shore, 51, signed a document on Aug. 6 expressing his wish to plead guilty to the federal charge, which carries a maximum prison sentence of two years and a maximum fine of $250,000.

The February indictment, originally filed in Kentucky where Bunning serves, does not describe any e-mail that Shore sent.

The indictment accused him of sending interstate communication "with the intent to annoy, abuse, threaten, and harrass any person who received the communication."

Shore could not be reached for comment on Tuesday.

In a May interview with the Huffington Post, Shore, said he sent several e-mails to Bunning's office after the Republican senator blocked legislation to extend unemployment benefits.

Shore said he was unemployed and "livid" with Bunning, who is not running for re-election this year.

The U.S. Attorney's Office in Philadelphia, where the case has been transferred, declined to comment.

There was no immediate response to a voice mail left at Bunning's main Kentucky office. His Washington office was closed.

Shore was sent to prison in the 1990s for a wave of burglaries in the suburbs, but he told the Huffington Post that he had since reformed his ways.