A man accused of threatening to kill Democratic election workers pleads guilty

DENVER (AP) — A man accused of repeatedly threatening to kill top election officials in Colorado and Arizona as well as judges and federal law enforcement officials pleaded guilty Wednesday to one count of making interstate threats.

Teak Ty Brockbank, 45, of Cortez, Colorado, admitted that before his plea deal, he threatened to kill people online “out of fear, hatred and anger.” The details of exactly what he admitted were contained in court documents that were not immediately released.

Brockbank, who has been jailed since his arrest on August 23, faces up to five years in prison when he is sentenced on February 3.

Brockbank had previously pleaded not guilty, but his lawyer Thomas Ward told the court earlier this month that he wanted to change his plea. Ward declined to comment after the hearing.

According to an arrest motion, Brockbank told investigators after his arrest that he was not a “vigilante” and hoped his posts would simply “wake people up.”

Investigators say Brockbank began expressing the view that violence against public officials was necessary in late 2021 and subsequently made several threats against Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold and former Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, now the state's governor. and said the others.

Brockbank criticized the government's response to Tina Peters, a former Colorado county clerk who was convicted this year of allowing a breach of her election system based on false claims of voter fraud in the 2020 presidential campaign, according to court documents. He was also upset in December 2023 after the Colorado Supreme Court was divided Donald Trump removed from the state's presidential election.

In an August 2022 social media post referring to Griswold and Hobbs, Brockbank allegedly said: “Once these people are killed, the others will melt like snowflakes and attack each other,” copies of the post said threats contained in court documents. Griswold and Hobbs were not named as those allegedly targeted by Brockbank when he was first arrested, but were identified as victims in evidence unsealed in September.

The investigation was launched in August 2022 after Griswold's office notified federal authorities about posts on Gab and Rumble, an alternative video-sharing platform that has been criticized for allowing and sometimes promoting right-wing extremism, according to court documents.

Brockbank also allegedly posted in October 2021 that he could use his rifle to “put a bullet in the head” of a state judge who was overseeing Brockbank's suspended sentence for his fourth conviction for driving under the influence, calling the judge a “Nazi,” according to the report Prosecutors said in an Aug. 27 motion calling for Brockbank to be kept behind bars while he is prosecuted.

Prosecutors also say Brockbank posted in July 2022 that he would shoot any federal agent who showed up at his home without warning. Prosecutors said a half-dozen guns were found in his home after his arrest in August, including a loaded one near his front door, even though he is not legally allowed to carry firearms because of a conviction for attempted theft by receiving stolen property in Utah in 2002 could own.

And although Brockbank was charged for allegedly making threats between September 2021 and August 2022, prosecutors allege he has continued since then.

In December 2023, after Trump was removed from the presidential election in Colorado, Brockbank allegedly told his stepfather in a text that he was adding the four justices who favored removing Trump to “my list.”

And this July, Brockbank continued to threaten Griswold, according to prosecutors, because her office triggered the investigation into Peters by informing authorities about the 2021 data breach. Griswold has also been vocal about election security across the country and has received threats in the past for insisting the 2020 election was secure.

Peters was sentenced this month to nearly nine years in prison for allowing access to the county's voting system to a man associated with My Pillow CEO Mike Lindell – a prominent proponent of false claims that voting machines were rigged to overturn the election to steal. Authorities were investigating individual threats against their trial judge, Matthew Barrett. Most of the messages appear to be strongly worded opinions, but none rise to the level of a crime, Mesa County Sheriff's Office spokeswoman Wendy Likes said Tuesday.

Brockbank was prosecuted by the Justice Department's Election Threats Task Force, which was created by Attorney General Merrick Garland to protect workers who have faced increasing threats since the 2020 election.

In 2022, a Nebraska man pleaded guilty to making death threats against Griswold, which officials said was the first such plea granted to the task force.

Colleen Slevin, The Associated Press