Feds: His Facebook posts were threatening

BY MICHAEL HINKELMAN, hinkelm@phillynews.com 215-854-2656
Posted: October 18, 2011

AN FBI AGENT testified yesterday at the trial of a Bethlehem man accused of posting threats on his Facebook page that "they seemed to be escalating and getting worse with each post."

Anthony Douglas Elonis, 28, was charged in January with interstate communication of threats.

When federal defender Benjamin Brait Cooper asked agent Denise Stevens if she could explain "disclaimers" that Elonis made with the alleged threats, she said she didn't know how to. Later, she said the disclaimers "actually made [the posts] seem more threatening to me."

For example, in a Nov. 6, 2010, post about his estranged wife, Tara, Elonis wrote: "Did you know that it's illegal for me to say I want to kill my wife? . . . Now, it was OK for me to say it right then because I was just telling you that it's illegal for me to say I want to kill my wife. I'm not actually saying it."

Elonis also allegedly threatened his former Dorney Park co-workers, elementary schoolchildren and the FBI, in October and November 2010.

Earlier yesterday, Assistant U.S. Attorney Sherri Stephan said in her opening statement that the threats "scared some and terrified others."

But Cooper implored jurors to consider the "circumstances" surrounding the alleged threats, which Elonis made after being fired from his job as a supervisor at Dorney Park and after his wife had gotten a protection-from-abuse court order against him for three years.

Cooper said Elonis was "angry and felt bad" but did not threaten anybody and wasn't a criminal.

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