Brendan Hunt said videos and social media posts calling for the slaughter of congressional Democrats were just jokes. Jurors were not convinced.
Brendan Hunt was struggling to find success as an actor in New York City when he discovered another way to become famous. He began to film conspiracy theory videos about the Sept.11 attacks and other mass killings, building an audience over many years. He posted anti-Semitic propaganda, and branded himself as a free speech warrior. He eventually became a fan of President Donald J. Trump. But during the pandemic, Mr. Hunt’s tone escalated. The tipping point came on Jan.8, two days after the attack on the U.S. Capitol, when Mr. Hunt published a video urging Mr. Trump’s supporters to kill Democratic politicians. A viewer notified the F.B.I., and Mr. Hunt was arrested in January. On Wednesday, after a weeklong trial in Brooklyn, a jury concluded that Mr. Hunt’s words were not protected by the First Amendment. He was found guilty of making a threat to kill members of Congress, a federal crime that carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison. Although Mr. Hunt did not travel to Washington on the day of the Capitol riot, his criminal trial was the first one in the country that required jurors to weigh the events of Jan.6 in their verdict. Jurors watched footage from the attack and heard the testimony of a Capitol Police officer. Mr. Hunt’s rhetoric, prosecutors said, had to be viewed in the context of the Capitol riot. “Many watched the video clips from the Capitol in horror, but the defendant was inspired,” said Ian Richardson, an assistant U.S. attorney, in his closing statement. “He watched the events of Jan.6, and he wanted more, more violence, more bloodshed.” People like Mr. Hunt have long posed a challenge for law enforcement officials, who sift through violent threats online to determine which ones are worthy of criminal prosecution and which ones are protected speech. Mr. Hunt was arrested on Jan.19, the day before President Biden’s inauguration, a signal that F.B.I. agents did not want to wait and see what he might have done on that day. The trial centered around four social media posts that Mr. Hunt made starting in December. Upset about the 2020 election outcome, he urged the slaughter and beheading of prominent Democrats ahead of Mr. Biden’s inauguration. Mr. Hunt singled out Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Senator Chuck Schumer and Speaker Nancy Pelosi as “high value targets.” “We’re not voting in another rigged election,” he wrote on Facebook in December.
